MJ Lenderman writes songs that are amorphous and elastic, rising to fill the venue they’re in, generous to accommodate the number of players on stage, less concerned with replicating the studio version than they are with meeting the crowd where they’re at. On And the Wind (Live and Loose!), the Asheville-based Lenderman handles most of the playing, but with The Wind, it’s a multi-headed beast. This live album is culled from sold-out summer 2023 shows on a brief headline run during what some might call a wild-*ss couple of months. It captures a near-euphoric moment in time – dizzying and exhausting and, most of all, having some real true-blue f**king fun with your best friends. It’s 90s college rock meets Americana hootenanny, an electrifying piece of the MJ Lenderman lore that needs to be experienced live with a light beer in-hand – but in the interim, And the Wind (Live and Loose!) does its best to commit the scene to tape
