PREMIERE | Vines, "The World at Large"

Leaves, trees, branches and Vines’ Cassie Wieland; photographed by Anna Longworth.

The poetics of prose serves as an important facet in the craft of balladry. It is the fertile plane by which cleverly combined sequences of words can relay the fortitude of mesmerizing mountains, towering skyscraping ziggurats that build worlds that can be both real and imagined all at the same time. It serves as one of the many functioning components of storytelling, where the author, writer, singer, songwriter, whoever is able to convey things that feel relatable, things that make us think and feel in different ways, things that are different, new ideas, new concepts, new narratives and limitless other fascinations. They strike both the creative and the audience alike in very special ways, as these curious assemblages of sacred codes take on something that can transcend time and embark into a phenomenon and artifice that verges on the immortal.

Surveying these schools of songcraft and more is Cassie Wieland, aka Vines who presents a rendering of the Modest Mouse classic “The World at Large”. Featured on the rising artist’s upcoming album Birthday Party recorded with collaborator Andrew Rodriguez and Mike Tierney at Shiny Things Studio in Brooklyn; Wieland taps into the ethereal rhythmic components found in the colloquial prosody of the original. The kick-the-can, skipping stone style is traded in for a kind of breathy breeze that floats like the smoke of fog high above the city skylines and the suburban rooftops alike.

Vines hones in on the atmospheric qualities of “The World at Large”. The rumble and jumble lyrical structure itself lends to something that is hypnotic and methodical like a sidewalk strolling stream of conversation fragment collections and swirling soliloquys. Cassie cradles the song in a harmonic hum that holds late evening telephone tones reminiscent of a lost message left on one of those tiny cassettes found in a retro answering machine. The expansive globe sprawling stanzas are given an airy treatment where they become specters floating about in the stratospheres of the ether like angels or apparitions that took a detour into the liminal space between the material realm of earth and the extents of the outer reaches and mythological heavens.

Cassie Wieland elaborated on the adaptation process with notes on the creative processes at work on the album Birthday Party:

I've spent the past year or so learning covers on my vocal processing setup just to get to know the instrument and practice my production skills, and this song played a huge part in that journey. Modest Mouse is one of my all-time favorite bands — Isaac's lyrics are so simultaneously conversational and powerful, and my goal with this cover was to really let that come through. My collaborator Andrew Rodriguez played a huge part in the engineering and co-production of this cover; he created most of the synthy sounds you hear just by messing with some vocal tracks I sent him.

In conversation with Cassie Wieland of Vines; photographed by Anna Longworth.

The making of Birthday Party was a very internal-turned-collaborative process as well. I think I spent a year working alone on the lyrics and form of the album, and once I took it to the studio with my friends it really came to life. It's kind of a great metaphor for what the record is about; feeling lonely, but finding community in that feeling.

Vines’ Birthday Party will be available August 18.