Note: We, the writers and commenters of Stereogum, have already done all the jokes about the Australian rock band the Vines on previous posts about Vines the Brooklyn-based ambient composer. If you make those jokes now, you'll just look like a loser. And anyhow, I like Cassie Wieland's music way better than I ever liked "Get Free" and all that.
Wieland announced her debut album I'll be here last month and released its tremendous lead single "Evicted." Today we get another stunner in the form of the album's title track and grand finale. Like most Vines songs, "I'll be here" is a slow-build that piles on new layers of beauty as it cycles through repetitions. This one goes full post-rock in a way that reminds me of Sigur Rós circa ( ), and it comes with a video by Evan Chapman.
Wieland offered this statement:
"I'll be here" was the track on the record that I started first and finished last. It began with me messing around on an old pump organ in my friend's attic in upstate New York, and it ended up being a centerpiece for the record that encompasses the project's main themes of moving through loneliness and shame and ultimately coming to self acceptance. To me, this song is a hopeful version of that saying 'wherever you go, there you are’–I will always be here for myself.
Regarding the video, she adds, "Evan and I really wanted to lean into the song's themes of the self-reliance needed to move through difficult feelings. The story of an internal 'fight at the family dinner table' perfectly encompasses the quiet intensity of the song I was working towards while writing it." Watch below.
I'll be here is out 7/18. Pre-order it here. Vines will perform at Basilica Soundscape 2025 this September in Hudson, NY, and before that she'll play a release show 7/24 in Brooklyn.
