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Oct 02, 2024 By Caleb Campbell

Later this fall, Brooklyn-based art pop outfit Office Culture are set to share their fourth full-length record, Enough, releasing on October 18th via Ruination Records. The album acts as an ambitious expansion on the styles explored with their 2022 record, Big Time Things, trading in singer/songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson’s talent for sophisti pop and soft rock for a collage of influences from the height of the CD-era. Some moments on the tracklist offer immersive trip hop sprawls, while others divert into rave-mutated experimental pop or glassy, ethereal soundscapes.

The record also represents an overhaul in Cook-Wilson’s creative process. The tracks came together in fragments, assembled from drum machine loops, samples, and improvisatory moments reconstituted on Cook-Wilson’s laptop. The album also features an extensive list of featured collaborators, co-writers, and vocalists, pulling from the large musical community Cook-Wilson built through his many production credits and collaborations. This includes not only Cook-Wilson’s longtime bandmates, bassist Charlie Kaplan, guitarist Ryan El-Solh, and drummer Pat Kelly, but also guitarist Dan Knishkowy of Adeline Hotel, harpist Rebecca El-Saleh of Kitba, and vocalist Alena Spanger, among many others.

Office Culture has already shared a handful of singles from the album, including “Counting Game,” “Open Up Your Fist,” and “Beach Friday.” Today, they’re back with a pair of new tracks, “Everything” (ft. Jackie West) and “Desire,” premiering with Under the Radar.

Together, “Everything” and “Desire” offer a taste of the breadth of sounds and influences at play on Enough. Each track moves in a different direction, but they both are supremely textured and immersive, with “Everything” settling into a sun-dappled groove and “Desire” slowly unfurling like a delicate glass flower. “Everything” sees singer/songwriter Jackie West taking lead vocals initially, her vocals lilting above a simmering blend of keys, guitars, and electronic textures. Later, Cook-Wilson joins, turning the track into a lovely duet set against playful rhythms and dreamy piano chords. Lyrically, the track offers a hopeful conclusion to the album’s spiritualist themes, with Cook-Wilson and Jackie West steering towards an open horizon full of possibility: “Diving past you, racing with the boats / Horizon lines, vague borders we assign / Make us feel unknown / Come on, come on / They’re dropping like stones / Lose those dreams, the burdens that you bring / Let go, let go / Tell me everything, everything.”

In contrast, “Desire” is subtle and abstract, guided by tasteful harp tones and Cook-Wilson’s crooned vocal melodies. It is one of the more subdued moments on the record, but it also shows off a muted magnetism, submerging the track in a dizzying swirl of crystalline melody and detailed production. As the track winds onward, it steadily fills out with celestial synth tones, icy harmonies from Alena Spanger, offbeat drum programming, and ambient samples. The results feel truly otherworldly, especially when paired with Cook-Wilson’s yearning, free-associative lyrics: “I know, I know, I know there’s more / Always stuck here pacing the killing floor / Further from the mystery than before / Have I closed it? / Have I closed it? / Are you close, babe? / Have I closed the door?”

Cook-Wilson says of “Everything,” “This began as a spontaneous jam between Jackie, Dan [Knishkowy of Adeline Hotel], and I. Jackie and I wrote the lyrics collaboratively, without firmly deciding on the picture we were creating. What resulted feels like one of the more hopeful songs I’ve ever made. It feels like something being sung out to an open horizon, staged in a tentative but earnest moment where anything feels possible with another person. A dance video at sundown made a lot of sense to me for this one.”

Check out both tracks below, along with the accompanying video for “Everything.” Enough is due out everywhere on October 18th via Ruination Records.