B-52’s Co-Founder Cindy Wilson Steps Out on Her Own With Electronica-Infused New Sound

Cindy Wilson's forthcoming solo album breaks the mold she created as a co-founder of the B-52's, taking a intriguing turn toward electronica. Check out the advance single above, titled "Mystic."

"It’s time to do something different," she told the Washington Times. "Mind you, I’m grateful to have my career with the B-52's, but it’s nice to have fun and play with my voice. There was always a lot of freedom in the B-52's, but not like this. I get to really have fun and play with my voice."

Wilson's new music, which she describes as "turbo chill," grew out of a collaboration with a group of musicians from her hometown of Athens, Ga. They started performing around the area as Ola Moon, then slowly matured away from a early diet of cover songs toward their own unique sound.

“The intention was to write one or two songs and see how it went, but things moved quickly from there,” collaborator Ryan Monahan told Pop Matters late last year, just after releasing the first of two earlier EPs with Wilson. “I was extremely flattered.”

Change, their first full-length album, is due later in the fall. In the meantime, they've set up a PledgeMusic page to support the project and begun a string of tour dates. Wilson tells Stereogum that "Mystic" "quickly became one of the band’s favorites and maintains its energy on the road. Lyrically, its about our personalities — how we’re all multi-dimensional in ways that we will never understand. We all have a hidden mystic quality if we can learn and trust to tap into that power."

This isn't her first time away from the B-52's; Wilson earlier sat out between 1990-96. But this is her first solo album, thanks to a new creative spark Wilson said she found while working with Monahan and Suny Lyons.

“It’s kind of magic to me,” she told Pop Matters, “to see what’s inside their heads and what they think. It makes me more modern, working with them. I might have been stuck in some pattern that I’d been doing years ago. This gets me out of myself, which is fantastic.”

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