The opening of “Sun Clouds (Orchestral Version)” immediately evokes for me some of the work Mark Mothersbaugh produced for the Rushmore soundtrack. That’s not to say that James Whetzel’s palm wine guitar style is in any way derivative of Mr. M; rather, it’s every bit as joyous and uplifting and then some. “Sun Clouds” is a song that you can and should dance to.
“Palm wine” is a folk guitar style that has its origins in West Africa by way of Portugal and it has a beauty rarely found in the Western world–what Whetzel does with it is magical. Bringing a style that often works outside of regular meters to a 4/4 beat that is just short of stomping is only the first surprise; replacing Whetzel’s dry-but-endearing vocals from the album version with a string arrangement that lends the tune a melancholy to which one can whistle is icing on this cake.
The beat itself, though—that’s the ice cream! Whetzel makes use of a “plethora” (his words, not mine) of acoustic percussion in a great deal of his music and it’s this percussion that moves “Sun Clouds” from gorgeous to transcendent. There is so much happening here that I’m unable to parse the individual instruments aside from handclaps and maybe a cajon (good grief, maybe it’s all on a cajon!), but that doesn’t fret me. I’ve jammed it on the surround and I’ve immersed myself in headphone bliss with this track. (Headphones REALLY bring out the magic of the percussion!) In short, I have been listening to the track on repeat this evening and I still can’t stop my toes from tapping and my head from bobbing.