Wise Old Moon has made itself anew, according to singer and songwriter Connor Millican. “Two years ago none of us were trained,” he said. “Today, I’m the only untrained musician.” The band’s transformation is evident on Don’t Take Off, its recently released second album. Where its first album, The Patterns, showcased ballads and instrumentals, Don’t Take Off captures the energy of the new band’s louder shows, without slipping out of the group’s folksy orbit.
“Within Americana there’s so much we can do,” said Millican. “I wanna be like a chameleon. And with this band’s ability to do anything, why not get weird?”
The sentimentality of Americana informs much of Millican’s music, but the stereotypical easy smile and exuberant laugh of the Southern songster are all but absent from the shadow of Millican’s wide-brimmed hat. His expressions are more stoic; his voice has an edge that transcends its limited range, like a Johnny Cash with his vocal chords untarnished by chemical excess, yet still well traveled. Millican has been honing that voice, and his guitar playing, since he was a teenager, and he rededicated himself to music in travels out West.
In 2013 Millican started Wise Old Moon with a couple of childhood friends. He made up the new incarnation of the band with students from the Hartt School of music last year. Dan Liparini oscillates between lap steel and electric guitar. Sean Rubin holds it down the bass and helps out on vocals. Stephen Cusano keeps the band rolling on drums.
But though the band may have changed, Millican’s musical vision for Wise Old Moon holds true. An honesty resonates throughout the songs as clear as Liparini’s lap steel. In “Denver to Charlotte,” Millican sings of the breakup that brought him back to Hartford — yes, she left him, and Denver, taking his whiskey with her.
The band’s new sound, and newfound professionalism, are the manifestation of recent tours throughout the conveniently spaced cities of New England, from bluegrass brunches to beer festivals.
“Our first goal was always to record live energy,” said Millican. “Everything we do has to hold up as an acoustic song, when I’m alone in the dark in my living room, but it has got to be able to change when I bring it to the guys.”
That Millican’s new band is comprised of jazz musicians explains a lot about their new take on Americana. Wise Old Moon’s Dirt Floor sessions, filmed in Cheshire, betrayed psychedelic leanings; the horn section featured in many recordings tinges Millican’s drawl with a jazz flair; Liparini’s lap steel suggests bluegrass; Cusano’s drums speed up country beats; and Rubin’s bass lines accentuate the rock and roll.
“What has made me grow was working with new musicians,” said Millican. “It’s been humbling to be around people who respect my songwriting enough to build off it.”
Millican’s vocals do hit their limits throughout this album, and he is still working out ways to not throw his voice, but on Don’t Take Off, it sounds more like he’s scratching the ceiling than bottoming out. As with Patterns, the album can get bogged down in the ballads (“Kid With a Camera”). But on the album’s last track, “Play it Back,” Wise Old Moon manages to synthesize the disparate elements that bring the band together, wading through the past toward the skyscrapers on this band’s horizon. They have a ways to go, but they are making great time.
“I feel like the farther south we go, the better we’ll be received,” said Millican. The band’s Nashville-bound tour will test those hopes this March.
