Review Summary: An album nearly lost and forgotten.
Floating around the web, somewhere on a forgotten blog, there is a link to an album called Motion and Language. It’s the only LP by Matthew Winn’s project Wildebeest, preceded by a single EP. A search for Wildebeest on youtube yields only a few results, and none of which exceed 500 views. Even the Wildebeest page on last.fm is a mess; the track names are there, but don’t actually link to any songs, and there are dozens of songs by other artists mixed in. Truly, Wildebeest has nearly been forgotten.
It would have been a shame if this album had slipped into obscurity, existing only on a handful of old, deteriorating CD’s. Winn himself seems unconcerned with the affairs of this early work, despite having a website which contains new (but unrelated) music. Thankfully someone recognized the value in this work enough to make it available.
Motion and Language expresses that which words alone cannot. The hoarse vocals, frantic guitarwork and basic production give it the unadulterated feeling that folk punk thrives on. Lyrics such as
“Two weeks later I’ll be two weeks better, then I’ll talk, then I’ll bull***, I’ll cover you up in conjugations. You know I’m always tense, I’ll speak in every tense.” are frequent throughout the album, and help paint a picture of this period of his life. The sense of alienation from living in a foreign country, illiterate, comes through quite viscerally.
"This is the story of nine months living in Spain, and of the frustration and isolation that comes with the building of relationships with people and places you recognize you'll never be able to fully embrace. This is the story of entrances, transition, languages and exits."
