Winston C.W. | Good Guess

Justin Poulin

I’ve been watching a lot of older movies recently, being stuck at home—like, way more than I would in any other circumstance—so forgive me for calling up a couple scenes from Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

I know, I know, just hear me out here. It’s been fresh on my mind.

OK, OK. You know what? Let me start over.

You know the scene where Johansson is sitting on the windowsill of the Park Hyatt Tokyo, looking out on the cloudy cityscape? What about the scene where Murray is window-gazing in the backseat of his ride while the neon extravagance flows on by? I ask because I’m reminded these scenes, and some larger aspects of this somehow-now-cliché indie masterpiece while getting lost in Winston Cook-Wilson’s Good Guess. It’s a bit of weird album. It blends indie pop and soft rock and strikes the emotional middle ground between existential melancholy and hopefulness, doing so with beautiful moments of jazz-forward harmonies but also chaotic bursts of noisiness.

The band Winston CW is a three piece: Cook-Wilson, the group’s namesake, with Carmen Rothwell on upright bass, and Ryan Beckley on electric guitar. Good Guess was recorded one Brooklyn weekend in 2019 during a turbulent moment in Cook-Wilson’s life, and you can feel that in the lyricism. The recording was done live, making for a genuinely organic appeal to this largely improvisational album. This album does a lot of window-gazing—and navel-gazing to say the least—across rainy skylines and the concrete expanse. It’s Bob Harris acknowledging the bizarre, almost sadly comical present, while analyzing his personal history, rendered somewhat helpless to his seemingly incomprehensible surroundings. It’s Charlotte contemplating an unreachable future considering an unsatisfied past, stuck in an alienating limbo. 

It all opens with misty keys and spicy chords on “Cakewalk,” which are then complimented by a mournful guitar tremolo and Cook-Wilson’s affected vocals. I find myself trying to wrap my head around his vocal delivery. It’s earnest and candid, like a Jens Lekman, or a Nicholas Krgovich, but also whimsical like a Mark Hollis. The Hollis comparisons don’t stop there either. The swanky sadcore aesthetic dives into the aloofness of late Talk Talk if crossed with the supreme cheese of Steely Dan’s Aja. It all feels a little tongue-in-cheek, ironic even, especially with Cook-Wilson’s almost cracking falsetto. 

Cook-Wilson looks around himself, at the bustling present marches on, finding that sense of alienation, so he turns inward and looks to the past. We get a taste of that on “Safety.” With some low-key Grizzly Bear vibes, he asks, “how long must the past delay me?” He sings a landscape into existence as the past bleeds into present like an “aching pasture” where “sometimes the grass looks worse than death.” As strings swell, he reaches into an upper register and says the future “oozes like an oil spill,” forming “a burnt horizon across a lover’s bed. “I want to run to it,” he says, “or let it find me instead.” These visuals are stunning and pair exceedingly well with the slight country twang of the guitar and the bittersweet piano chords.

I’m also struck by a particular highlight in “Broken Drum.” It kicks off with some very pretty cascading piano keys alongside airy open guitar chords. The track builds in tension, but dissolves into atonal cacophony with rattling piano keys and bassline palpitations. Cook-Wilson gets kitschy and somewhat ironic with mockeries of corporatism—“There’s someone new giving orders/new goals for the quarter/and the steaks are cooling/I’m almost back to myself, squeezing my hands for feeling.” He does this, all while embracing the goofy sounds and stylings of Windham Hill New Age from the 80s—and don’t get me wrong, I love it. Basically, this would be the moment when Bob Harris reels in dejection after his debasing Suntory shoot. 

(Uhh)

YES, I’m still making tenuous comparisons to Lost in Translation. Don’t think I’ve let you off the hook here, now that I’ve gotten lost in wavy pastels and jazzy piano chords. No, I’m still thinking of that devastating closing montage AND letting lounge-forward sophisti-pop wash over me like cheap perfume in a department store. I will get lost in my feelings if I damn well please!

(Anyway)

It all culminates with the last song, the title track. This one constantly builds from gorgeous piano notes ringing with only the vibrant overtones adding background color and it ends with drony, almost post-rock inspired guitars. Early on, guitar begins to pluck at the very top of the neck, just beyond the frets, where we get some metallic sounds that twinkle like broken glass with that reverb cranking. Instrumentation builds. Chords begin to climb upwards, hinting towards a climax. Overdrive on the guitar kicks in. The tone resembles something from a mid-2000s My Morning Jacket tune. It’s just got that stadium-at-dusk feel. It rings out as if towards a blanket-wrapped crowd, perhaps with cell phones ablaze to mimic lighters. This is the concert closer; everyone is huddled tight. This is Bill Murray stopping the taxi to run to Scarlett Johansson to whisper something furtive in her ear. This is the swelling momentum crashing down into a wall of sound. I mean, what did he say to her? I’m left wondering as much with the album’s final line, “it was a good guess, lover, try again.”

Ok, maybe I need to go outside.