Woods

Emerging from Brooklyn’s grassroots D.I.Y. environment in 2004, Woods started out as Jeremy Earl’s personal recording outlet while he was still active in Meneguar and gradually matured into a multifaceted, widely admired indie ensemble. The collective soon moved beyond its initial eerie lo-fi noise-folk aesthetic, incorporating Ethiopian jazz and broader African pop textures on the 2016 release City Sun Eater in the River of Light, then reached new expressive depth on the Mellotron-centric 2020 album Strange to Explain and the richly textured, loop-driven 2023 set Perennial.

Earl launched the project in 2004 as a side endeavor, issuing its first recording, the double-cassette How to Survive In/In the Woods, on the Fuckittapes imprint in 2005; its acoustic emphasis and spontaneous low-fidelity approach helped define the group’s early open-ended character. During 2007 the band issued the “Ram” 7", the album At Rear House, and a compact-disc reissue of the debut on Earl’s own Woodsist label. Woods Family Creeps followed in 2008, introducing Jarvis Taveniere, also from Meneguar, and G. Lucas Crane as new members.

The subsequent album Songs of Shame, released in 2009, garnered the strongest response yet for the still largely underground act, securing Pitchfork’s Best New Music designation. Their third studio full-length, At Echo Lake, arrived in late spring 2010 and introduced Kevin Morby on bass; it was succeeded a year later by Sun and Shade. By this point the sound had expanded from Earl’s earliest hushed solo work into louder, roots-oriented rock, with his distinctive high register riding over rambling, Neil Young & Crazy Horse-styled rave-ups. Drummer Aaron Neveu joined the live lineup, freeing Taveniere to concentrate solely on guitar.

In 2012, amid steady road work, Woods partnered with California circuit-bending outsider Amps for Christ on a split LP and delivered their fifth proper album, Bend Beyond. The following year they continued refining their sonic clarity on the brighter, more expansive sixth album With Love and with Light, their first to be tracked in a conventional studio. City Sun Eater in the River of Light appeared in 2016 as the second in-studio effort, weaving in Ethiopian jazz, ’70s West Coast rock, and occasional horn arrangements; around the same period Kyle Forester joined full-time on saxophone and keyboards. That year also saw two live documents: Recorded Live at Pickathon, shared with the Men, and Live at Third Man Records.

Intense reactions to the 2016 presidential election prompted a swift return to recording after an initial break; Love Is Love was captured over two months, preserving raw sentiment while extending the Ethiopian jazz thread and adding relaxed funk grooves, and reached stores via Woodsist in May 2017. Earlier that year the band performed at Marfa Myths in Texas alongside Dungen, leading Earl and Taveniere to collaborate with Gustav Ejstes and Reine Fiske on material later issued by Mexican Summer in early 2018 as Myths 003.

After Love Is Love, Earl became a parent and Taveniere relocated to California. The group reconvened at Stinson Beach in Northern California to track their eleventh studio album, the Mellotron-heavy Strange to Explain, which emerged in May 2020 as the ninety-ninth release on Woodsist. Pandemic restrictions halted touring, freeing time to assemble Reflections, Vol. 1: Bumble Bee Crown King, an eight-song collection of 2009–2013 recordings issued online in October 2020 and later pressed on multiple vinyl color variants in 2021. Woods’ twelfth studio album, Perennial, arrived in 2023; Earl initiated the process with a series of loops that the band expanded into extended arrangements, resulting in four fully instrumental pieces and seven vocal tracks that highlighted the ensemble’s matured, intricately produced sound.