Exclusive: Wye Oak and Flock Of Dimes’ Jenn Wasner has a new label, signature guitar

Fans who want more of the teaser’s six-string keening and hypnotic visuals don’t have to wait for the album’s release. Instead, they can pick up the JW-1, a new signature guitar from Reverend that’s splashed in the “Optic Interruption” pattern designed for Wasner by textile artist April Camlin. Commemorating The JW-1’s release, Wasner has written an essay about how playing guitar opened new creative avenues for her, even as it exposed her to the unintentionally patronizing, “This chick shreds!”-style reactions. Such impressions led her to compose Wye Oak’s fourth LP, Shriek, without the instrument she’d come to be associated with, though she states:

It was never my intention to “abandon” the guitar—the instrument that introduced me to my own creative impulses. But, of course, marketing your music to the public is like playing a real-life game of telephone—all of your complex and nuanced ideas get reduced again and again until they’re an easily digestible shell of their former selves.

You can read the rest of Wasner’s essay on Medium.