I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone is Wednesday’s second fulllength album & first as a full band. The Asheville, NC quintet (guitarist/
vocalist Karly Hartzman, lead guitarist Daniel Gorham, pedal steel
guitarist Xandy Chelmis, bassist Margo Schultz & drummer Alan Miller)
maximizes the dark dissonance of a three guitar attack to highlight the
emotionality of Hartzman’s bell-clear vocals & wisps of half-recalled
memories & literary references that make up her lyrics. I Was Trying
to Describe You to Someone’s eight songs meld elements of shoegaze,
grunge, indie pop & southern American culture into a uniquely personal
style of modern rock music that resonates with power & tenderness.
The ever-darkening & deepening of Wednesdays’ sound on I Was
Trying to Describe You to Someone owes a debt of influence to The
Swirlies, Arthur Russell, Red House Painters, Tenniscoats, Ana Roxanne,
Acetone, & their continued collaboration with MJ Lenderman (who
lends backing vocals to the songs “Billboard” & “November”). I Was
Trying to Describe You to Someone was recorded at Hartzman’s home
with engineering assistance from her roommate Colin Miller. The depth
& clarity of the recordings balance the distorted volume of Wednesday’s
live performances with the intimacy of Hartzman’s voice. Her words
hold the center of the chaos, unobscured by the power of the band.
Hartzman describes her lyrics as “attempts to access old personal
memories & do them justice through prose, with inspiration from the
writings of Richard Brautigan, Flannery O’Connor, David Berman & Tom
Robbins, & movies like Steel Magnolias.”