- On paper it would seem that Kurt Vile and I should get on swimmingly. Good friends of mine that I consider not to be brain-dead have often spun a kind word-web for the surprisingly mature American rocker, but it's never quite clicked. I've never once had the urge to make the slightest effort to indulge on a whim.

I guess there was only really so long i could remain impartial, indifferent, old man time catches up with all of us mortals eventually. When Vile's fifth album in six years recently reared its ugly head I finally had nowhere adequate to hide, now seeming like a good a time as any to get acquainted.

With little more than a few poorly pre-conceived misconceptions, I approached Wakin On A Pretty Daze with relatively open ears, cautiously optimistic while not exactly expecting my world to crumble in to dust.

So my world didn't quite crumble to a fine powder and blow away in to the ether, but I did and do actually find myself relatively transfixed by Vile's take on acoustic guitar driven, heartland rock with a psychedelic tinge. It's definitely music that is better heard than described, mere words definitely don't do it justice.

Wakin On A Pretty Daze and it's near seventy minute running time is not music made for those with an attention deficit. It's expansive and almost hypnotising music made for those easy going, patient souls that aren't fussed on flash, people who enjoy the time invested for a good slow burn and need the soundtrack for an off-kilter mind to wander off into its own world.

For all the time he takes, Kurt Vile doesn't spend any of it messing around: the docile chiller opening with the nine and a half minute epic which happens to also be the title track. That surprisingly gnarly number completely sets the tone for what's to follow, a whole lot of very pleasant yet misleadingly, hazy plodding which morphs and churns into motion. These are songs that lull you in to a beautiful, dreamlike state of semi-consciousness.

Wakin On A Dream is a confident, self-assured record that isn't going to pander to those who can't get with the program. It's sweeping and enchanting music for those who don't mind getting caught up in the smaller things in life, the soundtrack for lost souls that aren't looking for easy answers. Maybe me and Kurt have some things in common after all.

- Jay Edwards.