Wesley Stace Photo credit: Ilya Mirman
Recorded at Studio 1935 in Philadelphia’s historic BOK Building, One Last Heist is produced, arranged and written by Wes and longtime collaborator David Nagler.
The core band is comprised of Nagler (keyboards), Eddie Carlson (bass), and Stéphane San Juan on the drums. These backing tracks were supplemented by stellar guitar work from Joe Gore and Justin Mazer, extra drums from Patrick Berkery, and backing vocals by Chris von Sneidern. The bells and whistles – string quartets, clarinets, flutes, flugelhorns – were contributed later by friends.
The sound is expansive, generous, lush, even groovy, by turns dramatic and mellow, a far cry from Stace’s strummy folk-rock records of yore. What’s happened?
Say’s Stace, “There’s no reason why my songs shouldn’t swing like I want them to, despite all their words, like those CTI and Kudu records I listen to in the kitchen. Check out Esther Phillips doing Gilbert O’Sullivan, Johnny Hammond doing Cat Stevens. Why not?”
The songs, and their subject matters, encompass the encyclopedic array of Stace’s sometimes unique concerns. It’s a heady blend of mysterious narratives – a cracked visionary offers his work to an oppressive scientific board (“This Knowledge Dies with Me”), Death retires and forces his crown upon an unsuspecting, unconvinced stranger (“Hanging Up the Sickle”); practical advice to would-be entertainers still learning their lines (“Get It in Your Fingers”); excursions into mythology gone awry (“Penelope”) and protest songs – the pointed satire of “I Say Lots of Things” and majestic stand-out “Thoughts and Prayers.”
Underpinning all this, romance – whether the songwriter has been assigned the wrong subject (“A Funny One”), a human the wrong human (“Not My Speed”) or two grown-ups are simply trying to divine the end of the mystery of it all (“In Our Own Time”). The last song, “Hello Dead Horse” features a different heist entirely – a band getting back together for a quick cash grab – bringing the record full circle.
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