Wandering Years - You Are Covered in Brooklyn Amber 12"

As with so many great bands, the origins of Brooklyn-based slowcore act Wandering Years are both humble and unassuming. Formed in the fall of 2020 by singer/songwriter Gene Stroman as a solo recording endeavor, the project’s first two EPs, 2021’s On Not Coming Home and 2022’s Pocket Songs, were reserved, intimate, and minimalistic affairs that conjured comparisons to genre stalwarts like Sun Kil Moon, Smog, and Songs: Ohia. The records’ hushed, restrained vocals and gently picked acoustic guitars just barely held aloft Stroman’s self-reflective, bare, and often wistful lyrics, resulting in highly personal musical compositions that felt as much like diary entries as they did songs.

Their third EP, Wandering Years Retirement Community, was a somewhat more energetic effort, with Stroman now joined by a rhythm section and electric guitars. Even so, the record retained much of the methodical patience that defined the first two releases, sporting creeping, sprawling arrangements in the vein of slowcore progenitors Codeine and Bedhead, with Stroman’s bare-all lyrics buttressed by the presence of new musical elements. 

The band’s 2023 debut full length, Mountain Laughed, saw the band continuing to push against their sonic boundaries, featuring an increased focus on dynamism and a growing eagerness to paint outside the lines, with new instruments and new ideas furthering the conceptual expansion that began on Wandering Years Retirement Community. But Wandering Years defining features remained firmly intact, finding Stroman’s voice and words as nakedly vulnerable as ever, even set to music whose scope was steadily widening.

Wandering Years is a band whose satisfying evolution feels like a project of thoughtful expansion as opposed to redefinition, preferring to build on its foundation instead of beginning new construction elsewhere. At its core, it continues to be the introspective and deeply personal endeavor it began life as, albeit aided by the highly capable musicians Stroman has added to his ever-growing roster of collaborators. As simple a formula as that may be, it’s one that is deceivingly difficult to execute, and Wandering Years manages it with a potency and a panache that grows more rare by the year. 

"You Are Covered in Brooklyn Amber" is a lathe-cut 12" and fully hand-made, from the records to the inserts, stamps, and jackets. These are limited!

Pressing Info:

• 25 on black lathe-cut vinyl