about the cassette

Here we have two longtime friends devote a full-length record to their signature musical admixture. Across its thirteen tracks, the record captures the relaxed creative flow of two consummate musicians.

Most of the sessions began with casual improvisation, and, indeed, roughly half of the final material was composed in this manner: Wilkes and Mann squaring off, a Yamaha DX7 facing a Roland Juno 106, alternating leads, two co-pilots with no set course. And though the songs are polished to a shine, there are artifacts of the intimacy of these sessions. Yes It Is concludes with a snippet of just-intelligible studio chatter: “…A flat minor, then A major.” A figuring-it-out-as-we-go moment that briefly renders explicit the warmth, friendship, and creative freedom that is the album’s heart.

The duo has quipped that Compositions is Mann’s most “serious” project, while simultaneously being Wilkes’ most “light-hearted.” Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but there are certainly two distinct sensibilities at play across Compositions. Their aesthetics collide, coalesce, and diverge, often in a single song. Then the process starts anew.