An extraordinary album of modern-day folk-rock from Brooklyn but heavily inspired by British Isles folk and psyche-pop. The music and arrangements evoke Nick Drake but go further away from folk into a more elaborately orchestrated and at times heavy psyche/prog rock vibe and replace the wistfullness and mystery of Drake with something altogether more forebording and sinister. The voice sounds maybe more like a cross between Destroyer and Marc Bolan.
Layering piano and bass on top of an acoustic guitar foundation, Wexler explores tension through the use of pedals - in the music theory sense of the word. In long drawn out songs he explores open, flowing landscapes of sound creating a rich and majestic tapestry of anachronistic wonder. Sunwheel is so perfectly of an era that it sounds like it was recorded 30 or 40 years ago and yet, like many of the albums and artists that inspired, it's so good as to be timeless. That's what puts it head and shoulders above most contemporary artists making interpretations of music from bygone times. Another aspect of the album that renders it more than mere interpretation is the way that it effectively synthesizes various periods - voyaging from psyche-folk to heavy psyche to florid prog-rock pretensions in the course of a single song.
Sun Wheel is an astounding, classic album that stands up against any of the albums that inspired it. Strongly recommended.
