One of the most anticipated albums of this early part of 2016 is Life Of Pause, the third full-length from Wild Nothing. The musical brainchild of singer-songwriter Jack Tatum rose fairly quickly through the indie ranks over the past seven years, building a huge fanbase for his jangly dreampop sound and gently poetic songs that speak to love’s joys and agonies. While the new LP does rely on some of those same signposts, the sonic palette that Tatum is working from is much larger and more colorful and more reflective of his lifelong musical obsessions and penchant for vinyl collecting. As a result, Life Of Pause has a more expansive feel, with songs like the shimmering title track and the darkly smoldering “To Know You” offering up some breathtaking views into his creative mind. To get a deeper glimpse into the new record, we caught up with Tatum and let him expound on some of the artists and composers that informed and inspired his songwriting. 

STEVE REICH

He and Philip Glass did a string of concerts in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where each night they took turns doing different pieces. My girlfriend and I went to one of the nights when they were doing Music For 18 Musicians, which is my favorite of his. It had a real impact on me. It was extremely enjoyable but tiring. It's very hypnotic and complicated in a way that I can't really understand because I'm not that well-versed in composition. Rhythmically he's doing things that are beyond me. I love that even if it is complicated, it still has an emotional resonance. I found myself connecting to minimalism and I wanted to see how that could be used in the context of a pop song. "Reichpop" I was thinking, How could you do something like this but in a new wave style? It was as straightforward as that.

ROBERT FRIPP

He connected so many dots for me over the last couple years of all these different artists that I really loved and people that are majorly influential. Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall... All these people that Robert Fripp came to be integral in helping create sounds for their records. There have been so many instances of him popping up in liner notes and me being, "Here he is again." There's a common thread with all the people that he worked with. They were trying to do something different with pop music but combining these arty elements into structured songs. Obviously his playing and the textural quality that he gets with his guitar is extremely unique. He's also one of the only guitar players that I feel that way about. I'm not necessarily the kind of person that cares about virtuoso guitar players. To me, that's a boring concept. But he is one person that is so unique. That Daryl Hall record [1980's Sacred Songs] was one of the first instances of him doing the "Frippertronics," which is the thing that he was known for. It's so funny to me that of all the records that he worked on, that is the one where he introduced the concept. There's that song "Babs & Babs" that, about 3/4 of the way through, just devolves into these waves of guitar. The first time I heard that song, I was just..."Whoa." It just seemed so unexpected. I loved it.

ENNIO MORRICONE

He's a guy that everyone knows but they don't realize it. I love that fact that without anyone realizing he is just in the popular lexicon. I studied film, and took a course that was just Westerns. Once Upon A Time In The West was one of the films we watched and I fell in love with the score—even more so than The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly or Fistful Of Dollars. It felt more novel at the time in college, but obviously I realized that he did so much more. I kind of became obsessed with him because of how much he's done. I tried to find as many soundtracks of his that I could. His creative output is just insane. Melodically, he's on another level. I specifically became way more interested in the stuff he was doing from the late '50s to the '70s. A lot of the soundtracks are very similar but they would have these gorgeous melodies. He has some very large moving orchestral pieces but also some of the early stuff is very raw with drums and rock elements. I love that there's all these different sides to him. The sense of melody has been consistent the entire time. His ability to write melodic lines that move over some really complicated chord changes, and that manage to sound really sweet or suspenseful. I took a lot from that specifically. This idea of trying to write really interesting instrumental melodic lines.

PREFAB SPROUT

I was on a road trip with my girlfriend and we were listening to Two Wheels Good, and I told her, "I think I've listened to this record more than any other this year." I love a lot of their other stuff but that record for me is a masterpiece. It took me a while to get into that record. There was a wall for me somehow. There's a lot of elements in the music that does feel very of an era and slightly dated. You listen to it and go, "Is this cheesy?" The more I listened to it, the more the songs were showing themselves outside of any context. Lyrically, really, really smart, funny. Kind of embarrassing sometimes. A lot of the compositions, the more you listen to them you find all these hooks and little things that are memorable and catchy. It's complex but not in a way that feels exhausting. I can't think of many other bands quite like them. It inspired me to be a little more adventurous with chord choices. I got into this mindset of not doing what felt obvious. When you're writing a song, you get into these grooves and there will be something that pops up that sounds familiar and you go with it. It's easy to trap yourself in doing the same thing. I was inspired by them to see what other options I had and what other routes I could go down.

TODD RUNDGREN

Both Prefab Sprout and Todd Rundgren made amazing, very straightforward pop songs but had these tangents I like that a lot. And in the space of a couple of albums. You have Something/Anything?, which has the songs that people associate with him, like "Hello It's Me" and these other concise amazing pop songs. But then there's A Wizard, A True Star. The a-side of that record is just bonkers. I love that he was willing to do whatever he wanted. Even on that first side, there's moments that are so pure pop and very catchy but then he'll do bubble noises for a minute. I like that he was someone that could take the very sweet and straightforward aspects of what was happening in soul music and run with it and try to make it a bit weirder. Obviously I respect him on a production and recording level too. He did do a lot of stuff on his own. I think that's admirable. That's something that I'm also interested in is the sonics. Not just write songs but how do I make them sound interesting and do everything on my own.

PHILLY SOUL

It's so relatable. It's very structured music but feels very smart with really good melodies. It's not catchy in a way that you're bound to hear on mainstream radio. There are Philly soul artists that I was familiar with before like the Delfonics, but I started to get obsessed with it. It was just what I would do when I was younger. I fell in love with one artist and then tried to find other artists in Philadelphia at the time that were playing similar music. Then finding all these groups like The Intruders and The Manhattans. I loved that there was this consistency. There was a while there in past two years where I was listening to a ton of that kind of stuff constantly. I think it all kind of congealed in my brain. With having that always being on the background at my place, I let it slip into my music. I couldn't help it. The song "Whenever I" in particular is kind of soulful, "A Woman's Wisdom" has some soul influence as well. I didn't think too hard about it. I didn't just sit down and go, "I want to introduce these soul elements." My brain just did it for me.