Paper Kisses by Wolverton

Released October 6, 2020, Wolverton’s second full-length, full band album, Paper Kisses. With fifteen songs, the album is representative of live sets the band has played for the past couple of years. Produced and recorded live by Joe Reyes, with additional instruments by the band, BJ Cole and Kim Mackenzie.

“Cosmic American Music,” a term with two meanings, is the celestial perspective of the American musical tradition, a synthesis of Folk, Blues, Country and Rock, and it is also cosmic in a more ineffable way—it understands America, its mysteries, wonders, tragedies, and ghosts. Wolverton’s music easily resides in Cosmic American Music like blades of grass floating down a river. On their second album, Paper Kisses, Wolverton crafts an elusive synergy of opposites. These songs are nostalgic but arch, serene but gently confounding—they snake and zag until one is happily lost in a canyon at sunset. Echoes abound on this album: you can hear the pastoral lilt of early 70s Grateful Dead, the breezy chamber folk melodies of Fairport Convention, one song even seamlessly splices in sections of Prince’s When Doves Cry. It all seems in its right place. “Train is coming around the bend.” Hop on and let it take you past the vanishing point of the horizon.

--- Neil Fauerso

Paper Kisses is a beautiful, weird and fun combination of songs to listen to and dream of a new future — or perhaps a look into a wild and adventurous past…the style and delivery is uniquely Wolverton….with a softness that meets sharp words cutting like razorblades…a surprising range of emotion and a large variety of styles. Each song expresses a different longing, in One Good Reason it’s a longing for answers and in Driving Memory the longing of a time traveling the roads of America. The lyrics seem familiar until one listens closely, catching sometimes a rather darker meaning that seems to float on the airy tunes of the voices and instruments. The song Sand starts out with a toe-tapping lighthearted melody until the words follow, “I walk like I don’t know there’s a hole in my shoe ... the ocean deep appears in my mind ... a trail of sand is all I leave behind.”

--- Christina Stock, Roswell Daily Record

"Standout tracks for me are ‘Tabernacle’, infused with mellotron and octave fuzz guitar. The barroom piano led ‘Oh Well’. The lilting title track ‘Paper Kisses’. ‘Birds Of Rockport.' ‘Poplars And Thistles’ which has some dirty guitar from Jack Sputter. Also of note is the surprising arrangement of ‘Shakin’ Grape Jelly’, incorporating some lyrics from Prince’s 'When Doves Cry’, it’s a purple dream where the world is a big fat bowl of shakin’ grape jelly."

--- Steve Palmer, Terrascope

The core collective is Kate Terrell, Caralyn Snyder, Hills Snyder, our key collaborator, Joe Reyes, and others who come and go, sit in or otherwise join the Wolverton musical family.

Lyrically, Wolverton is unanchored, very visual and moving equally through memory, story, and association, with dark streaks of tradition.

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