The Desperate Ones (2005)
1. Song One
2. In the Time of the Wolf
3. NE.
4. The Black Turn Pink
5. Triumph
6. The Wasp
7. Their Crimes
8. The Desperate Ones
9. Kiss the Highway
10. Crosses
11. Safe
12. The Ones Who Waste the Day
13. Onward
Hover on artwork for track listing
The Desperate Ones, Nic Garcia’s third full-length album (and his first on Yer Bird), is a dark, swirling road trip - all wet gravel, breathless engines and bleary predawn. The album is a markedly different affair from his previous releases (2003’s Blue Howl and 2004’s Sheep & Wolf) in that it wraps Garcia’s bleak, meditative prose in lush keyboard textures, drawing on modern composers like John Zorn and Ennio Morricone.
The songs relay an obscured North Dakotan narrative - unfolding through hints and suggestions like a strung-out reading of Springsteen's Nebraska. The world created by Garcia is one that is both mythic and tangible. This is showcased most strikingly on the apocalyptic fever-dream of ‘Crosses’ - and is created almost solely with his haunting voice, skeletal guitar work and rich, varied keyboard playing. Also contributing to the album is Secretly Canadian’s inimitable June Panic.
Yer Bird is very proud to release Nic Garcia’s The Desperate Ones - it is an album of both rare beauty and lurking danger from one of the Midwest’s greatest and criminally under-appreciated voices.