Smoking the Bunny

Smoking the Bunny is the second album in a planned trilogy from Brooklyn avant-indie band Wilder Maker, following 2025's The Streets Like Beds Still Warm. Across seventeen tracks, bandleader Gabriel Birnbaum steers expansive, groove-oriented compositions with poetic, cinematic qualities: warped nocturnal avant-pop with engaging hooks around every corner.

The record draws on the full range of Birnbaum's musical life, from free jazz and improvisation to indie rock and ambient home recordings. “I hope that ultimately this trilogy will be viewed as a time when I liberated myself from my influences,” he says.

Following the model of Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, editing itself became a creative instrument: band improvisations recorded at Figure 8 in Brooklyn were condensed through tape machines and effects pedals, then reassembled, with vocal melodies improvised over the results before lyrics were composed.

The album features contributions from Katie Von Schleicher, Chuck Johnson (pedal steel), Joseph Shabason (saxophone), Macie Stewart (violin), Cole Kamen-Green (trumpet), Kitba (harp), and percussionists Levy Lorenzo and Will Shore.

The songs follow a character through a night of intoxication and memory, while beneath their surfaces run questions of family, identity, and aging. “It's a midlife record,” Birnbaum offers: “One can't be disappointed without having first hoped for everything.” The trilogy concludes in 2027.