If Corsicana Lemonade, the fifth full-length studio album by White Denim, sounds like the group’s most focused yet, it didn’t happen by accident.
Words like “focused” and “cohesive” haven’t always been the first descriptions to come to mind when it came to White Denim’s output.
The band has moved around quite a bit stylistically and sonically, but still has impressed critics and fans at every turn. The group’s second album, 2009’s Fits was a spiky, punky affair that touched on everything from spacy Blues to Jazz to ’70s Rock and Soul. The download-only 2011 album, Last Day of Summer, was even more scattered stylistically than Fits, but had much of the same musical personality. The next effort, D, took White Denim’s music in a warmer, more expansive and somewhat psychedelic direction, while still retaining the expected eclecticism.
While on tour with Wilco in early 2012, they got to know the band members, and frontman Jeff Tweedy suggested that White Denim come up to Wilco’s Chicago studio for a recording session. Tweedy and his engineer, Tom Schick, eventually re-entered the project by mixing six of the 10 tracks on Corsicana Lemonade. In a sense it brought the project full circle and added to the continuity of the album.
