Hunkered down and unable to record together, in 2020 the MEKONS created a glorious digital chain letter of an album. Exquisite is a sprawling manifesto of connection and defiance that deftly slides through fiddle tunes, digi-dub, fireside ballads and urgent rock & roll. And that’s just side A.
The original recording plan was to have been the whole-band-in-a-room session in Valencia, Spain. When the pandemic rendered that impossible the process took a sharp swerve. The album credits describe it this way: ‘Exquisite’ was recorded in lockdown on mobile phones, broken cassette recorders, clay tablets & other ancient technologies in Aptos, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York & Devon.