Hataałii – ‘Waiting For A Sign’ album review: a haunting modern masterpiece
THE SKINNY: If Hataałii was any more laidback he’d be lying down. Hailing from Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation, the 21-year-old knows a thing or two about sleepy sepia-tones. With effortless indie swagger, his sixth album captures his hometown landscape, that feels at once rugged and visceral yet shimmered with a mirage of wistful spirit.
His plaintive tunes capture this golden, ghostly world with a fidelity that is immediately transportive. Inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan‘s crooned Nashville Skyline classic, Waiting For A Sign encapsulates old America and its lingering ways—sounding not unlike a far-gone dream of driving through New Mexico at sunset while listening to ‘Lay Lady Lay’.
However, it is far from lost in this dreaminess. For starters, it begins with the uttered line “Alex Jones”; as much of a decidedly evocative 21st century figure as you’re ever likely to find. However, like the wistful music at hand, Hataałii treats him with a weary hush. There will be plenty of folks who find kinship in Hataałiinez Wheeler’s words—words reflective of a fellow tired of all the hullabaloo of this hectic age, just trying to navigate a simple life.
It’s not only this disposition that makes Waiting For A Sign at once original and welcoming, but after a prolific spell of self-released records since 2019, the young ‘old soul’ behind it seems to have also hit upon something definitively his own in the process with his second release on Dangerbird. He has written his way towards a defined voice. Of course, there are strains of detectable lo-fi indie, but nobody in this realm resounds with the textural rigours of modern life quite like Hataałii and his haunted grooves.
Waiting For A Sign is an album that mediates the modern world through the honeyed hiss of an AM Radio in an old pick-up, driving through eternities in search of sunnier climes, as the dusk steadily settles in.
For fans of: Paris, Texas, wishing everyone would just chill out and get on, and sipping a bottle of beer while listening to a record on a sunny porch.
A concluding comment from The Dude: “Say what you like about the tenets of political solipsism, at least it’s an ethos. So turn off the fucking Eagles and play some Hataałii, man.”
Waiting For A Sign track by track:
Release: September 12th | Label: Dangerbird | Producer: Hataałiinez Wheeler
‘Alex Jones’: A haunted reflection on hectic modern life and its wildest antagonists. It’s a track that perfectly sets out the stall of the album, with twanging slide guitar and wry sentiments making Hataałii’s disposition very clear. [4/5]
‘Brown Eyed Fool’: The twinkling lead single is a driving song that carries his developing sound and style forward. His deep croon is sweetly charming, and his assured sense of blue sky songwriting is apparent throughout. [4/5]
‘Love Is Over’: Weaving towards more upbeat tones, ‘Love Is Over’ showcases Hataałii’s knack of breaking up the swaying tones with a hooking chorus. It’s an anthem Mac DeMarco would be proud of. [4/5]
‘Ballad of Athabaskan Theory’: The reverb is a little less drenching in this more stripped-back lament of an abandoned people. But it proves no less haunting, ultimately, sounding as though your hi-fi speaker has tapped into a ghostly floating ghoul of the 1980s. [4/5]
‘In My Lawn’: Deep Texan affectations and whimpering cries showcase Hataałii’s ability to pay around with character. The world’s he creates are three-dimensional, like a musical Paris, Texas. And the guitar effects are nothing I’ve ever heard before. [4/5]
‘Burn’: They are simple, beautiful old chords, but they’re given such careful and considered treatment that Hataałii takes them somewhere new. The strums and plucks create a backing bask in dreaminess while he weaves wavering prose of “nothing new”. [4.5/5]
‘Go Ahead and Try’: The drumbeat rises in the mix and the guitar takes on a disco-inclined reverb. The structure is decidedly experimental, but the funkiness of the instrumentation makes it perhaps the most obvious single from the record. A close to a jam as Hataałii’s somnambulant, rambling style will allow. [4.5/5]
‘Near The Sea’: Plaintive and weary, the record returns to type and in the process, there is the first note discomfort as things temporarily seem a little samey. However, at a mere 2:27, there’s a smart concision to Hataałii’s work, as ever. [3/5]
‘Buckskin Boy’: Like ‘Goodbye Horses’ without the harrowing notion of a killer tucking his spam javelin between his thighs (Silence of the Lambs), this anthem takes things back to a distorted dreaminess of the 1980s in affecting style. The level of character is astounding. [4.5/5]
‘Something In The Air’: There is a touch of Tom Petty in the guitar work. Hataałii adeptly showcases he’s considered enough in his playing to exhibit mastery of how different an upstroke and downstroke sound. These subtleties drag you along towards a relatively euphoric chorus. [4.5/5]
‘Minds Didn’t Show Alike’: An acoustic breaks up the instrumentation of the album as Hataałii sounds almost too drained to weep. It’s a haunting Morphine-like lament of a song, sweetened by the sepia-twang of duelling guitars. [4.5/5]
‘She Held My Arm’: The albums most withdrawn cut, simple raw acoustic plucking is ran through intermittent catastrophic echo and clean sounds, creating the effect that Hataałii is right next to you and 20 years back in the past. This craft showcases the record’s stirring production with aplomb, though it might be a little plodding. [3.5/5]
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