Bass, Sky & Asphalt: Unwed Sailor's Music for the Highway-Echoes July CD of the Month
by John Diliberto 06/27/2026
Sometimes the greatness of a band sneaks up on you. That’s the case for me with Unwed Sailor. I didn’t hear them in their first incarnation, which began in 2001, but discovered them upon their return from a 10-year hiatus with the album Heavy Age in 2019. The band is headed up by bassist Johnathon Ford. He is the principal composer and centers his songs around the bass as both the melodic voice and rhythmic engine. He’s been forging an instrumental rock sound now for all this century. His work carries echoes of new wave artists like The Cure and New Order, but it also has a distinctly American character: wide-open, cinematic expanses that feel like driving through the Southwest at 100 miles an hour. The bands latest release, High Remembrance, is a fitting Echoes CD of the Month for America’s semiquincentennial this July.
Some albums build up to their intent, but High Remembrance establishes its scope on the first track, “Truest Sentence.” It gives you a false opening with a couple of space bloops, but quickly launches into a heavily syncopated four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal ride. Its bass-forward melody propels the track while wah-wah through tremolo guitar creates a counter melody. As you’ll find with many Unwed Sailor songs, it’s celebratory.
High Remembrance is a more dynamically-varied and timbrally-rich album than previous Unwed Sailor recordings. “West Coast Prism” is an explosion of color as its title suggests. Guitars ring out in a canyon of reverb, echoing off the walls while Matthew Putnam drives its shifting patterns of rhythm. Keyboards add a gilded edge to this ecstatic ride.
The band has hard-driving roots in the punk rock scene and “Don’t Let Go” borrows from that. It’s unrelenting in its insistent 4/4 groove and Ford’s chunky bassline, surrounded by alternating sustained guitars and shredding power chords.
“Three Jewels” is a song of intertwined bass leads and a melody that becomes increasingly heroic as keyboards drop triumphal calls. Unlike a lot of music tapping a more atmospheric instrumental Americana sound, Unwed Sailor rests in major keys and heroic cadences. “Cinnamon,” for example, is simply a joyful song, riding on an upbeat bass riff and jangly electric guitar. It even has a wordless vocal harmony section like something out of an early western movie soundtrack, and a rhythmic feel just south of the border.
The title of “Punk Broke” comes from the documentary film, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. But it’s a different kind of cinematic expanse that comes to mind. “Punk Broke” could be the score to one of those scenes where the protagonist, after hitting rock bottom, has finally come out the other side and is driving into the dawn. You can hear U2 in this track with the delayed bass and ringing guitars. Driving is a metaphor that fits well with High Remembrance. In this July of 2026, you want to pop it on, open the windows and turn it all the way up.”
Johnathon Ford’s influences from bassists Peter Hook of New Order/Joy Division and Simon Gallup from The Cure are often cited. But while that inspires his bass guitar approach, his music with Unwed Sailor taps a more post-rock sound like Explosions in the Sky, Tristeza and Mogwai. I would also look to earlier groups like Dif Juz, who put out a defining instrumental album in 1985 on 4AD, and even earlier to San Francisco’s Quicksilver Messenger Service and songs like “Gold and Silver” and most of the Happy Trails album.
The Beatles get in there as well. The opening of “High Remembrance” with its bass and tom-tom opening sound like the start of the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” and has that same, slow blues feel. It’s a slow dance beautifully poignant melody that holds up across several repetitions, its simplicity a virtue. Some distant spoken words pop up in the middle, as if heard from a radio or answering machine (remember those?). It adds an undefined nostalgic effect. Guitars and bass run in parallel with a keyboard pad beneath, as they ride into the sunset.
On their 11th album, Unwed Sailor is making their most powerful music in their 25-year career. Recordings like Music, Fashion, Film: Recorded in Paris, by Charli xcx and You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love by Olivia Rodrigo, are being promoted as the records of the summer, but for me, Unwed Sailor’s High Remembrance is the Record of the Summer of 2026.
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