IMAAD WASIF Debuts Mysterious And Reflective “So Long Mr. Fear”
“In ways subtle and direct, Wasif, a self-described “spinner of webs,” entangles us in nothing less than his own reckoning. It’s liberating.”
– BUZZBANDS
“‘Fader’ is quite a beautiful little thing. Mercury Rev, early 70s Lennon with ‘Fade Into You’ guitar. What more can one ask for on a Sunday Morning, with its almost hymn like ‘I have just found god but am ignoring him until he begs for my forgiveness’. Yes, a track of elegance eloquence and pop sublimity.” – MONOLITH COCKTAIL (On “Fader”)
“From the top of his Noel Fielding-with-his-fingers-in-a-power-socket hair to the bottom of his pointy shoes, some-time Yeah Yeah Yeahs fret-botherer Imaad Wasif is painfully cool. [He’s] bound to make legions of indie kidscream their skinny jeans, but for good reason.” – NME
“Wasif takes the listener on a different journey from astral projection to self-discovery and everywhere in between.” – BEARDED GENTLEMEN
“Imaad Wasif is a shapeshifter, morphing fluidly from sideman to frontman to solo artist in the span of a few albums.” – PASTE
“… haunting, mysterious and evocative…” – LA WEEKLY
IMAAD WASIF
Debuts mysterious and reflective “So Long Mr. Fear” Video
From Haunting Sixth Album
So Long Mr. Fear Out Now
SEPTEMBER 13, 2022 (Los Angeles, CA) – Acclaimed Los Angeles singer, guitarist, and songwriter IMAAD WASIF today releases a transcendental video to his new unchained title track off his sixth studio album So Long Mr. Fear (released August 9, 2022 via Sonic Ritual). The track begins with a staccato piano that stems from a childlike place, while it also has a pulling questionable, and pensive feeling. As told to Atwood Magazine “”So Long Mr. Fear” is as much about love for the child within me, to the child in anyone that yearns to be free. I’m just so sick of being crippled by fear in so many parts of my life and wanted to write a song to shatter it.”
Filming the new video for “So Long Mr. Fear” wasn’t an easy job for director Jeff Hassay, but it also inspired the film takes throughout. “My infant son was literally strapped to me throughout the entire shoot adding a tinge of chaos that was fun to navigate,” Hassay says. “In a way, he was the co-director. I’m sure he thought that Imaad was singing the song to him. Was he going to scream or sleep?” As Imaad adds, “The camera was on a tripod and through every take I danced to the song to pacify the little visionary.”
To capture these reflective feelings Hassay explains, “I tried to make the video look a little like Neil Young’s On The Beach. It was shot near where I grew up, with the grainy fevered fog, oblivious passers by and the creepy darkness that settles into places where we were young, shrouding everything in mystery and wonder.”
Photo credit: Jeff Hassay
So Long Mr. Fear as a whole features Wasif’s clear and crisp vocals amid lush instrumental arrangements that belies the album’s actual remote recording arrangement. “We built a tunnel through the goddamned pandemic,” Wasif says about tracking most of the album in isolation but in conjunction with producer and long-time collaborator Bobb Bruno of Best Coast. Like songwriting experts such as Lee Hazelwood, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Cave, on So Long Mr. Fear, Wasif, collaborator Bruno, and mixer GRAMMY®-nominated Lewis Pesacov (Best Coast, Nikki Lane, FIDLAR, Local Natives) unearth big ideas by carving away at smaller things until they glisten with universality.
Tender yet enigmatic vulnerability is reflected effortlessly in the album’s ten tracks. Largely acoustic and warmly produced to allow his vocals the space to breathe, So Long Mr. Fear utilizes atmosphere and texture to occupy the same wavelength as rhythm and melody to soaring heights. For the first time in his guitar-focused recording life, Wasif wrote a lot of So Long Mr. Fear on piano. Yes, his expert use of open-tuned guitars, which add a luxurious, mysterious drone, endures; but the circumstances – forced isolation wrought by the pandemic – afforded him the time to mine new instrumental veins. Recording most of his master takes while both singing and playing, the aim was to excavate songs without overthinking – relying on what Wasif calls “the simplicity of their compositions – the direct passage into the emotional realms that I feel most at home in.”
“So Long Mr. Fear” lyrics:
It’s been so long, Mr. fear
we’ve been together since I was just a little boy
but you’re so bold to take back the years
the wind is cold, without you here I’m going haywire
you’re on my mind, out of time
Tell me do you love another more?
have you been walking after midnight in between the rain
I’ve watched it all disappear
out in the storm I said so long, so long Mr. fear
I’m terrified, I don’t deny
I want to fly
out of your shadow
I want to make it on my own
do you realize?
that I don’t know the way back home
In disbelief of the new disease
now that the veil is lifted, and I’m all twisted up
I step on through to your dimension
somewhere underneath the Indian moon I’m lost
I got the jab to keep you near
how can anything be the same now that I’ve been tossed
to the wolves in disguise
I want to fly
out of your shadow
I want to make it on my own
do you realize?
that I don’t know the way back home
so long, so long, so long Mr. fear
With five critically-hailed previous albums under his belt, So Long Mr. Fear is the sixth solo album for this accomplished artist. During Wasif’s life as a musician he’s been with bands including early slo-core noise rock duo lowercase; psychedelic folk group alaska!; and Sebadoh/Dinosaur Jr. member Lou Barlow’s project the Folk Implosion. Those not familiar with his riffs and solos for Electric Flower Group, Grim Tower and ACID might recognize his electrifying work as a touring member of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Imaad Wasif’s video and second single “So Long Mr. Fear” is out today. His Sixth Studio album So Long Mr. Fear is out now via Sonic Ritual/Eternal Music Group.
SO LONG MR. FEAR
Elemental
Come Around
I Am Free
Fader
Poet Of The Damned
Painted On
Place In The Dark
Regeneration
So Long Mr. Fear
Jealous Kind
