Ola Podrida

Belly of the Lion (Western Vinyl)

David Wingo’s music streams in nostalgia, spilling out somewhere between night’s tussled memories and day’s soft break against gray skies. His voice lulls with a hypnotic power, like David Bazan left alone to quietly muse back into himself. Wingo’s sophomore album as Ola Podrida surges with more confidence and strength behind bursts of psych-folk (“We All Radiant”) and raw banjo (“Donkey,” “This Old World”). Yet the easily rolled opening guitar lick on “The Closest We Will Ever Be” strikes immediate contrast to the locally transplanted Dallas native’s imagistic fragments and collages of suburban malaise, an aesthetic perfected by fellow North Texans the New Year. The past flirts with a drifting ubiquity, through the adolescent nights of “Your Father’s Basement,” the wistful heartbreak of “Lakes of Wine,” and the tremored simplicity of “Sink or Swim.” Wingo’s world is familiar but beautifully rendered.

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This article appears in October 16 • 2009.

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Doug Freeman has been writing for the Austin Chronicle since 2007, covering the arts and music scene in the city. He is originally from Virginia and earned his Masters Degree from the University of Texas. He is also co-editor of The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology, published by UT Press.