Inside Wilco’s Latest Loft Session

For 10 years, Wilco have recorded and rehearsed in the Loft, their dream clubhouse on Chicago’s North Side. Guitar cases are stacked to the ceiling, unusual instruments are strewn about, and every band member has his own bunk bed ready for an all-nighter. On a cold late-February afternoon, guitarist Nels Cline is adding gorgeous lap-steel overdubs to their seventh studio album, due in June. In stark contrast to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, on which all six members played their parts live, frontman Jeff Tweedy says, “We wanted to use the studio more, to create more of an artifact than a document.” Adds Cline, “Everyone was so on their game. This one is more plastic, more sonic.”

The disc doesn’t have a title yet, but a piece of paper tacked up in the studio’s control room is covered with suggestions: “Best Album Yet,” “Nova Bowl,” “Kiwi in My Pants” and “Down With the Skirts” ”“ the last of which catches Tweedy’s eye. “Down With the Skirts?” he deadpans. “I thought I was saving that for my solo album.”

In December, Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and drummer Glenn Kotche travelled to New Zealand to play on an Oxfam benefit CD with Crowded House’s Neil Finn. “The studio in Auckland was sounding good and the weather was great, so we stayed and cut the basic tracks for most of the record down there,” says Tweedy, sipping a Diet Coke in the Loft’s kitchen. “It just felt so comfortable.”

”˜Deeper Down,’ which begins with the lines “By the end of the bout, he was punched out, fists capsized, muscles shouting,” features cascading lap-steel lines, delicate finger-picking and a bedrock of bizarre guitar and keyboard tones. ”˜Everlasting Everything’ (which ends on a guitar solo that sounds like a flute) and ”˜I’ll Fight’ (bolstered by B3 organ and smoking guitar from Cline) are declarations of undying love. And on the simmering ballad ”˜My Country Disappeared,’ Tweedy sings about “crushed cities,” concluding, “There’s nothing left here.”

“That song was written before the election, wanting to embrace hope but feeling beaten down by eight years of feeling awful,” Tweedy says. “I think any writer, over time, has obsessions, and a lot of the obsessions that were in place on our previous records are on this record, too. Contemplating American life is nothing new to me. Ruminating on mortality is nothing new to me.”

But beyond all the sensitive cuts, the record also includes killer high-energy tracks like ”˜Sunny Feeling’ and the standout ”˜Wilco, the Song’ ”“ which Tweedy says is written as if it were an infomercial for the band. “The rock songs are always difficult in the studio, because you’re missing the audience,” he says. “But ”˜Wilco, the Song’ is more alive than anything we’ve ever captured. It says, ”˜Do you dabble in depression? Is someone twisting a knife in your back? Are you tired of the cold stare of your stereo? Wilco will love you.’

“My records have loved me,” he adds. “Not my own records, but music. It’s silly to say, but I think it’s very real.”