Philadelphia artist Kurt Vile is a songwriter of epic proportions, evolving a laid-back yet transfixing psychedelic indie rock sound over a career arc that grew from self-released CD-Rs to major-label releases. Vile takes notes from masters like Neil Young, Sonic Youth, and Dinosaur Jr., exploring inventive guitar tones on meditative and sometimes self-reflective songs that often drift at their own deliberate pace. He co-founded the War on Drugs with friend Adam Granduciel in 2005 but quit shortly after the band got off the ground to focus on his own music. He released several albums for various indie labels, finding new levels of mainstream success with 2013 album Wakin on a Pretty Daze. His blurry-eyed musings and signature songwriting style broke through to a worldwide audience and he continued working with a multitude of special guests on his own records as well as co-creating albums with Steve Gunn and Courtney Barnett. After the release of 2018's Bottle It In, Vile signed with Verve Records for the release of his major-label debut (Watch My Moves) in 2022, and quickly delivered Back to Moon Beach, an EP of unreleased material, the following year.
