One of the most charismatic frontmen in modern bluegrass, Woody Platt has played an important part in shaping the trajectory of bluegrass music over the past 20 years. As a founding member and lead singer for The Steep Canyon Rangers, Platt spent years touring tirelessly, many of them in collaboration with actor/comedian and banjoist Steve Martin, earning a GRAMMY award, multiple GRAMMY nominations, and international recognition in the process. But when the pandemic struck, the time at home caused Platt to rethink his personal priorities. He decided to put his touring life on hold and left the Rangers to spend more time with his young family.
Fortunately for bluegrass fans, the end of Platt’s tenure with The Rangers has marked a new chapter in his musical life, one that he is celebrating with the release of his first solo album, Far Away With You. The album cements Platt’s place at the cutting edge where traditional and contemporary bluegrass meet, and his smooth baritone vocals, coupled with his ear for lyrics with contemporary themes, create a sonic palette that honors his bluegrass roots even as he cultivates new growth.
The first single released from Far Away With You is a grassy take on the Blind Willie McTell classic, “Broke Down Engine,” pairing Platt with his bluegrass hero Del McCoury. The collaboration was a dream come true for Platt and was years in the making. He was still in college when he traveled across the country to a bluegrass festival in Colorado to see Del McCoury. Many years later, with Steep Canyon Rangers, he had the opportunity to share the stage with his hero at the iconic Ryman Auditorium. Platt says: “What an honor to record ‘Broke Down Engine’ with a legend like Del McCoury. This ride has literally taken me from the ground floor to a dream come true.”
Continuing the theme of collaboration, “Toe The Line,” written by Barrett Davis and Josh Carter and powered by Bennett Sullivan (banjo), Casey Driessen (fiddle), Barry Bales (bass), and Daren Shumaker (mandolin), gives Platt the opportunity to sing with another bluegrass idol, Tim O’Brien, one of modern bluegrass music’s leading lights. Platt then gives the Kings of Leon’s song “Beautiful War” an acoustic treatment with the addition of the multi-talented Darrell Scott providing tenor harmony and Weissenborn guitar. He saves the grassiest moments on the album to share with long-time bluegrass pals Rob McCoury (banjo), Jason Carter (fiddle), and Buddy Melton (vocals) with Shumaker (mandolin) and Bales (bass) on the album’s lead-off track “Like the Rain Does,” which also features Jerry Douglas on Dobro.
Two of the standout songs on Far Away With You found their inspiration closer to home. “Off To The Sea” was written by Platt’s wife, singer/songwriter Shannon Whitworth. She originally wrote and recorded the song with The Biscuit Burners, but it found a new life as a bluegrass duet, describing the dilemma of a couple divided between the mountains and the coast. The set ends with the Platt original “Walk Along With Me,” inspired by the nights that Platt sat up with his infant son, and written while he cradled the newborn between his chest and a guitar.
Born and raised in the mountains of western North Carolina, Woody Platt confesses that his hobbies have always ended up becoming his career. He still marvels at the fact that the bluegrass band he started as an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill evolved from a hobby into a GRAMMY-winning band and a headline act at some of the top venues in the country. Back at home, his passions continue to inform his lifestyle and his musical pursuits. Platt co-founded the Blue Ridge Music Camps in an effort to build community by helping others to learn to play the music that he loves, as well as the Mountain Song Festival, which has raised $1.5M for the Boys and Girls Club of Transylvania County, North Carolina. And he continues to enjoy his childhood passion for fishing, sharing that passion with others as a fly-fishing guide. Platt reflects on it all, saying, “I’m so proud of what we accomplished while I was with SCR, and I’m excited each and every day about what the future will bring.”
Critically acclaimed and Americana Award winning Singer-songwriter Mindy Smith’s sixth studio album, Quiet Town, brings a treasured musical voice back into the spotlight.
For Quiet Town, her first album of new material in 12 years, Smith called on producer and musician Neilson Hubbard, alongside engineer Dylan Alldredge. Hubbard enlisted guitarists Will Kimbrough, Megan McCormick, and Juan Solorzano, bassist Lex Price, Danny Mitchell on keys and horns, and a host of acclaimed vocalists for the background vocals, including Maureen Murphy, Nickie Conley, Jodi Seyfried, Matraca Berg, Kate York, and Park Chisolm.
Smith’s talent for expressing the most human of vulnerabilities is in full display on the new album. Beyond the title track, other album highlights include “Jericho,” co-written with esteemed artist and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame songwriter Matraca Berg, which gives voice to anticipation of impending life changes of monumental import; “I’d Rather Be a Bridge,” a plea for compassion and connection; and “Farther Than We Should Have,” co-written with Natalie Hemby and K.S. Rhoads. The latter is a song about overcoming the deck stacked against kindred spirits who together trek through a difficult journey and find footing beyond beating the odds.
Arguably, Smith’s wisdom and insight grew out of the challenges of her youth. Most longtime fans know she was raised on Long Island by her adoptive parents: her non-denominational minister father and her mother, the choir director at their church. However, in 2014, Smith connected with members of the birth family she had never known, living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia. She also found her newly discovered relatives to be musically inclined, a discovery that helped her make sense of her innate attraction to Americana music. That connection inspired several of the songs on Quiet Town, most notably in the sense of gratitude and reassurance that she offers in “Hour of My Departure,” a duet and co-write with longtime writing partner Daniel Tashian.
The spirit of gratitude is the note on which Smith concludes the album. The song “I Always Will,” holds out the promise of an abiding love that can transcend whatever troubles life may bring. “I write for one purpose and that’s to figure out how to live in the world I am in” Smith has been quoted as saying. Responding to her comment from years past with a laugh, Smith says “I hope I never do figure that out, because if I did, I don’t think I’d know what I’d write about.”
Smith’s 2004 debut, One Moment More, sold over 400,000 copies and put Smith squarely on the list of artists defining Americana and roots music. A defining element of her music has always been the powerful simplicity of her straight-to-the-heart vocals, rejecting so much fussiness that often characterizes pop music, whether country, pop, R&B, or rock. Although she has carved a path for herself in Americana music, it is telling that she has cited jazz singer Sarah Vaughan as her favorite vocalist. And the Los Angeles Times raved, “Her voice exudes the gentility and grace of [Alison] Krauss, while musically she can evoke an electronics-drenched moodiness of latter-day Emmylou Harris, which can indeed leave a listener yearning for one moment more.”
Country, Bluegrass, and Americana legend, John McEuen will release his latest album, THE NEWSMAN: A MAN OF RECORD on April 12th on Compass Records. In a groundbreaking project for McEuen, the album consists of ten spoken word tracks and one instrumental, each creating a theatrical masterpiece that no listener will forget which features John’s distinctive musical style throughout. Starting with the title track, recounting the real-life tale of a newspaper vendor who profoundly impacted the young musician in Los Angeles, and concluding with “Jules’ Theme,” inspired by Jules Verne sharing the story of his recently departed young wife in a French cemetery to a friend, the album leaves no stone unturned.
“I have been around the world playing music and collecting stories for… a long time,” McEuen acknowledges. “As a teenager, well before the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, I loved Meredith Wilson’s ‘The Music Man.’ Before I started playing, I must have recited ‘Ya Got Trouble’ 2,000 times! Later, when performing became part of the life I picked, every now and then I would do one of these ‘stories’ (often a Hank Williams talking blues) on stage, always happy about how well they went over. I did ‘The Mountain Whippoorwill’ for many years with the early Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Then, another story would come along, be learned, and ‘filed away’ for a future date. ‘The stories’ soon tired of waiting to ‘get done,’ so, I did them.”
The album features a mix of tracks from different eras and genres. From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Civil War-era poem “Killed at the Ford” to Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee” about a Yukon prospector, the collection spans various literary themes. Other tracks include Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Mountain Whippoorwill,” Hank Williams Sr.’s “Fly Trouble,” and Walter Brennan’s “Old Rivers.” Thomas Monroe’s Vietnam War reflection “Nui Ba Den” contrasts with more recent compositions like John Carter Cash’s “The Guitar of Pineapple John,” Hans Olson’s “I’ll Be Glad (When They Run Out Of Gas),” and Thaddeus Bryant’s “Red Clay.”
Born in Oakland, CA in 1945, John McEuen relocated to Orange County for high school, where he began his musical journey at 16 while working in a magic shop alongside Steve Martin. Co-founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, McEuen’s departure after 50 years marked a shift towards solo endeavors and new creative paths. Notably, he orchestrated the groundbreaking Will the Circle be Unbroken album, boasting collaborations with bluegrass legends and earning multiple accolades. With over 40 albums (6 solo) that have earned four platinum and five gold recognition awards, multiple Grammy®, CMA and ACM awards, IBMA Record of the Year, and performed on another 25 albums as a guest artist and a prolific career spanning nearly six decades in live entertainment including concerts, television, and production, John shows no signs of slowing down.
John’s production of Steve Martin – The Crow won the 2010 Best Bluegrass Album Grammy®. The Music of the Wild West CD, produced by McEuen, was honored with the Western Heritage Award. A Grammy® nomination for String Wizards II preceded the 1994 Uncle Dave Macon Award for excellence in preservation and performance of historic music. John’s popular Acoustic Traveller show is now in its 16th year on Sirius/XM’s The Bridge. McEuen produced and directed the 1990s documentary film The Dillards – A Night In the Ozarks, which captures his early mentors at their best. His recent ventures include producing albums, writing books, and exploring spoken-word projects, epitomizing his enduring passion for storytelling and music exploration.
Singer/songwriter Kelly Hunt’s new album, Ozark Symphony, is the fruit of many journeys. Set against a backdrop of the Midwest prairie, Ozark Mountains, and Mississippi river delta which have shaped the contours of her life most intimately, its songs chart a course through universal stories of life’s peaks and valleys. Taken as a whole, this album establishes Hunt as a vital voice in Americana music, standing shoulder to shoulder with modern-traditionalist songwriter/poets such as Anaïs Mitchell and Gillian Welch.
For Hunt, making Ozark Symphony was a journey in and of itself, one which led her to producer Dirk Powell and his Cypress House studio in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, on the banks of Bayou Teche. Powell, whose musical pedigree runs deep in Celtic, Cajun, and old-time music, drew from a diverse community of musicians across the US and UK—including Natalie Haas on cello, multi-instrumentalist virtuoso Mike McGoldrick on Irish flute and Uilleann pipes, and Kai Welch on trumpet and accordion—to cultivate a lush sonic landscape around the album’s 12 tracks.
The album’s title track was born on a twilight drive through the stretch of Ozarks that connects Hunt’s former home in Missouri to her native home in Memphis, TN. Hunt reflects: “While I’ve never lived squarely in the Ozarks, they seem to have served as a passageway between the defining destinations of my life. When choosing a title track for this record, ‘Ozark Symphony’ stood out to both Dirk and me as the clear choice. That phrase seems to embody the spirit of the story I’ve set out to tell while also expressing, in a broader sense, the way I see myself and the music I make—an uncanny cross between the earthy and classical influences of my upbringing.”
The song “Evangeline” is a thematic centerpiece of the album. It is a dramatic reimagining of the Evangeline story—a folktale inspired by true events and immortalized by the 19th-century Longfellow poem. It is the story of an Acadian exile whose search for her long-lost love takes her on a harrowing journey across the American frontier, down through the Ozark Mountains, and ultimately to Louisiana, where she settles at journey’s end. Hunt felt a powerful connection to the Evangeline story long before she discovered that her ancestors were among those Acadian wayfarers, and long before she knew that her own journey would lead her on a parallel path across the Ozarks down to Louisiana, where she now resides. The three verses of the song are written from the perspective of three different characters in the story. Hunt is joined on the track by one of her favorite vocalists, Rachel Sermanni.
The song “On the Bayou” is also inspired by the Evangeline tale. Hunt recalls it bubbling up just a couple weeks before recording the album. Its chorus is an invocation of sorts: “Evangeline, tell me what you know…” A plea for guidance across time and space from one lovelorn woman to another, and a summoning of the same lodestar that led Evangeline to the live oak on the banks of Bayou Teche where her search was fulfilled.
Other songs explore Hunt’s Southern roots. On a road trip back to Tennessee to visit her folks one summer, Hunt chanced upon a compilation of Hank Williams Sr.’s greatest hits at a truckstop and took a deep dive into his catalog. Sitting on the front porch of her childhood home with banjo in hand, Hank’s classic gospel tune “Lost Highway” still fresh in mind, she decided to take a walk down the driveway, her tenor banjo still strapped to her. “It was a perfect late summer’s day, golden hour,” she remembers. “My dad had a bonfire going, and the smoke was coming through the trees, catching the long shafts of sunlight. It was a rarefied moment. Just then I heard a rustling of leaves at my feet and looked down to see a big brown snake just a few inches away. I stopped, it stopped, neither of us moved. For whatever reason, I started nervously plucking my banjo…just a simple, spontaneous riff.” And thus Hunt’s own “Lost Highway” unfurled.
Another stand-out track is the simple duet, “What About Now?” The spare arrangement is the perfect vehicle for Powell’s mandolin and harmony vocals. Together Hunt and Powell tease out the playfulness of this song—light-hearted and tender with a touch of melancholy—while simultaneously evoking a sense of restless urgency, which Hunt says she was feeling keenly at the time.
The album closes with a cappella song, “Over the Mountain,” which Hunt wrote on a gorgeous summer morning en route to a funeral. She explains that it was a charged moment—equal parts grief and gratitude, beauty and sadness—which called to mind something a friend’s grandmother used to say: “There’s a comin’, there’s a goin’.” On their first meeting, deep in the heart of the Ozarks, just as dusk was falling and the cicadas struck up their chorus, Powell made an impromptu recording of Hunt singing this song inside of an ancient cave which once served as a Native American ceremonial site. He later spliced this live version into the studio track (featuring harmonies by Rachel Sermanni and Powell’s daughter, Amelia Powell), bringing the album full circle with a veritable Ozark symphony, as timeless and true as the mountains themselves.
Kelly Hunt is a native of Memphis, TN. From an early age, she was exposed to music spanning from Rachmaninov to Joni Mitchell to Mississippi John Hurt. She grew up singing in choirs, poring over poetry books, and writing her own music as a matter of course, first on piano, then banjo. After being introduced to the banjo in college while studying French and visual arts, Hunt began to develop her own improvised style of playing, combining old-time picking styles with the percussive origins of the instrument. After graduation, Hunt embarked on a rambling path through career pursuits in farming, culinary arts, and graphic design, ultimately landing in Kansas City, where she recorded her 2019 debut release, Even The Sparrow, which received a nomination for the International Folk Music Awards “Album of the Year.” No Depression describes her songs as “the musical equivalent of a book you can’t put down, one you’ll want to revisit again and again to catch every nuance and turn of phrase.” She is now based out of New Orleans, LA.Hunt has inspired praise from a wide range of critics including Rolling Stone Country, which wrote that “Kelly Hunt sings with the lilting cadence of a folksinger born somewhere far away, sometime long ago.”
Clever, insightful and irreverent, Robbie Fulks is a founding father of the alt-country scene and an icon in roots music. One of the most gifted songwriters of his generation and deeply rooted in the musical traditions that built an entire genre, Fulks’s adventurous spirit and eclectic persona have defined a critically-acclaimed 30-year career that has included 15 solo albums, two Grammy® nominations, and a mountain of respect from some of the industry’s most revered personnel.
Fulks was born in York, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a half-dozen small towns in southeast Pennsylvania, the North Carolina Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge area of Virginia. He learned guitar from his dad, banjo from the Earl Scruggs instruction book, and songwriting by a trial-and-error process that is still going on. He attended Columbia College in New York City in 1980 and dropped out in 1982 to focus on the Greenwich Village songwriter scene. He moved to Chicago in the mid 1980s, joining Greg Cahill’s bluegrass outfit Special Consensus and teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music. After a stint as a Music Row songwriter in Nashville in the 1990s, he embarked on a solo career with the Chicago-based indie Bloodshot Records and later, Geffen and Yep Roc, releasing a string of albums that helped to define the “alternative country” movement. His 2016 release UPLAND STORIES garnered Grammy® nominations for Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Song for the track “Alabama At Night.” While Fulks’s aversion to genre constraints and conventions has sometimes made him hard to pigeonhole, American country music, in the widest sense, is his home base — the country of Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard, Bobby Charles, and Mississippi John Hurt, for example. For the last ten years, he has focused in his writing and performing on homespun tales and acoustic instruments.
But while bluegrass music has always been a part of Fulks’s musical vision, his forthcoming release BLUEGRASS VACATION, releasing April 7th via Compass Records, is his first purely bluegrass endeavor. Paired with a cast that features some of the brightest stars of the genre including Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, Ronnie McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, and Jerry Douglas, the result is one of the most remarkable bluegrass albums of the century.
BLUEGRASS VACATION opens with “One Glass of Whiskey.” Driven by Wes Corbett’s banjo, it is an upbeat track worthy of becoming a standard of the genre. Written shortly after his move to Los Angeles in 2019, the song is a “contradiction of the stereotypical view of LA,” ditching the common pre-conceived notion of palm trees, beaches, and traffic for Fulks’s more serene reality of porchside mornings, mountain vistas, and running horses. “Molly and the Old Man”, featuring Brennen Leigh’s harmony vocals and Alison Brown’s banjo, is a poignant homage to the power of traditional music to sustain us through tragedy and help us find common ground across generations. “Angels Carry Me” features Sierra Hull on mandolin and shines as an incredible display of Fulks’s songwriting capabilities, balancing three themes: rural loneliness, rock-star worship, and father-son tension. Fulks describes his halting progress in finishing the unusual song as “two-steps-forward-one-step-back” but says he “fell in love” with the end result, citing tool tips from the likes of Paul Simon on how to structure the multihued tale.
The autobiographical “Longhair Bluegrass” connects Fulks to the hippie bluegrass festival scene of the early 1970s that helped shape him and features newgrass pioneers Sam Bush (mandolin/harmony vocals) and John Cowan (vocals). “Let The Old Dog In” is a bluegrass barnburner featuring some top-flight picking from Russ Carson (banjo), Jerry Douglas (Dobro), Shad Cobb (fiddle) and Ronnie McCoury (mandolin).
Fulks saves the last track for himself. Accompanying himself on clawhammer banjo, he ponders the allure that traditional music has always held for him. “Because of my earliest experiences, I’m stuck with this quirk – I just can’t get comfortable with the Rolling Stones or U2 or hip-hop the way I can get with banjo music.”
In the end, Fulks plants his flag firmly in the bluegrass tradition, a genre that built the stepping stones Fulks walks on today. He muses: “Electric guitars might give way to computers, as seems to be happening now, but the mountains will still be right there.” It’s abundantly clear that BLUEGRASS VACATION is more than just a musical dalliance for Fulks. He owns the music as much as it owns him and the listener is left hoping that this bluegrass vacation will end up becoming a staycation.
Renowned producer, songwriter, fiddler and sideman Dirk Powell has achieved near legendary status in the international roots music scene. His bonds with Louisiana and with the mountains of Kentucky are unmistakable, but so is his far-reaching vision and ability to translate the essence of tradition for modern audiences that need the timeless and sustaining messages that tradition brings. Powell’s new album, WHEN I WAIT FOR YOU contains 13 tracks, all but one of which are original. The songs showcase Powell’s gritty vocals—reminiscent of Levon Helm in one moment and his mentor and former father-in-law, Cajun legend Dewey Balfa, in the next—and penchant for catchy melody set against a soundscape of fiddles, accordion, whistles, harmonica, and rhythm section. Donald Shaw (Capercaillie) co-produced the album, which was recorded in Louisiana and Scotland and features special guests Rhiannon Giddens, Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins, Mike McGoldrick, and John McCusker.
The album title addresses the listener directly. “My hope is that the phrase ‘when I wait for you’ feels personal to whoever listens to the record—that this is the music I write and create in those moments,” Powell explains. “I want the listener to feel that phrase addresses them personally.”
The album art, an assemblage of objects meaningful to Powell assembled on his home piano, provides more clues to the meaning behind the title. Especially the playing cards.
“I have found two jacks in my life, from decks of cards, randomly, just lying alone,” Powell says. “For me, these are symbolic. I still can’t believe that I found them—a jack of diamonds on the street in Dublin, completely alone, laying face down on a dark, urban sidewalk, and a jack of hearts in Germany, in a field on an island in the middle of the Rhine. It is the German jack, so it has a B on it rather than a J. I identify with what the jack represents in many ways. Not a king, necessarily, but someone who is often tasked with bringing out the best in others, being in service in creative ways. Perhaps someone moving more in the shadows than declaring things from a throne. So in the cover art there are these jacks, particularly the jack of hearts, in the space of goddesses whose energy I feel and for which I’m grateful. The shadow on the Jack of Hearts is something like a yin yang pattern… half in shadow and half in light. These are feelings that resonate with me, tied to this project.”
Dirk brought Shaw, McGoldrick and James Mackintosh from England and Scotland to his Louisiana studio. With his mother ill at the time, he couldn’t drive the three hours from Lafayette to New Orleans when they flew in; they settled for a Greyhound trip. “That was diving into the Louisiana experience, directly and fully, in the most real way,” Dirk says with a laugh. Immersed in his studio, located on the banks of the Bayou Teche, they worked on the songs. “It was beautiful to feel their Celtic sounds merge with the old cypress wood of the walls, and the humid air, and settle into the energy of this place,” he says.
Other friends were brought in to help take things a little further—Sara Watkins, who adds her soulful energy, talent, and virtuosity, and Rhiannon Giddens, who is one of Powell’s closest friends and musical collaborators. (Powell co-produced her 2017 release FREEDOM HIGHWAY and her 2019 collaboration with Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell and Amythyst Kiah, SONGS OF OUR NATIVE DAUGHTERS.) He even enlisted his daughters, who grew up with a lifelong love of harmony, to add background vocals.
“Creating with them in the studio, and letting all the music we’ve listened to over the years flow into new art together, was a beautiful thing.”
Powell says that WHEN I WAIT FOR YOU is a less “aggressive” album than his previous releases, not in intensity but meant more as a “magnet” to audiences rather than something projected to the listener. It’s an intimate group of songs presented as an invitation into his world – his studio, friends, family and home, realized not as a “concept” but as something that grew naturally in a warm and present way.
Over the course of his career, Dirk Powell has recorded and toured with Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Rhiannon Giddens, Linda Ronstadt, Jack White, Loretta Lynn, and many others. His work in film, including Cold Mountain, found him collaborating with producers including T Bone Burnett, and directors like Anthony Minghella and Ang Lee. He was a founding member of the important Cajun group Balfa Toujours and has been a regularly featured artist in the award-winning BBC series THE TRANSATLANTIC SESSIONS. WHEN I WAIT FOR YOU is the follow up to his 2014 Sugar Hill release WALKING THROUGH CLAY.
Blending his deep understanding of American roots music with a unique ability to weave traditional sounds into a contemporary musical tapestry, Powell has delivered one of the freshest and most engaging folk and roots albums of the year.
Blending his deep understanding of American roots music with a unique ability to weave traditional sounds into a contemporary musical tapestry, Powell has delivered one of the freshest and most engaging folk and roots albums of the year.
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Compass Records is proud to present BLUE ON BLUE, the new album by renowned singer, writer and ukulele-player Sylvie Simmons. It’s the follow-up to her revelatory 2014 debut SYLVIE—an album that The Guardian hailed as “One of the most beautiful albums of the year. Spell-binding,” and Devendra Banhart called “Fragile and fearless, direct and poetic, timeless and absolutely beautiful.” Rolling Stone said, “She’s not only good, she’s good. Had this same album been newly issued in mono and credited to an obscure mid-‘60s flower child, the word ‘legendary’ might be used by more than a few writers who’d swear they’d purchased it back then.”
Her unforgettable songs, delicate but sensual and bold, earned unanimous praise and rave reviews, with comparisons to a young Marianne Faithfull, a punk Piaf, and a female Leonard Cohen—as well as a prime slot in the 2018 Ethan Hawke/Jesse Peretz movie Juliet, Naked, and shout-outs from fellow musicians including Rosanne Cash, Brian Wilson and Elvis Costello.
If her first album seemed to appear out of nowhere, in a way it did. For three and a half decades, before coming out as a singer-songwriter, Sylvie—born in London and based in California—had been an acclaimed rock writer, and the author of books including her celebrated biographies of Serge Gainsbourg, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen. It was after touring around the world for more than a year behind I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen (her 2012 book which now has over 25 translations), singing his songs and accompanying herself on a ukulele, that Sylvie did the near-impossible and crossed over into writing and recording her own songs, with the encouragement and accompaniment of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, who produced her first album.
In 2017, Sylvie returned to Tucson to make her second album with Gelb. But the work came to an abrupt halt. That first evening, after recording first takes of five of the songs, Sylvie suffered a dreadful accident that left her with multiple broken bones, nerve damage and an unusable left hand. Life became “A bit of a horror story.” A long and painful period of surgeries and rehabilitation. Finding herself unable to play several of the songs she’d written for the album with her damaged hand, Sylvie wrote some new songs. She recorded them in different studios in-between treatments and her writing work.
But listening to BLUE ON BLUE, you’d never know there had been a problem. Seamless and beautiful, with its memorable songs and spacious, unexpected arrangements, once again it highlights her intimate vocals and intelligent lyrics that at first listen seem dreamy and gentle but hold hidden barbs and pain. From the opening song, “Keep Dancing,” where she sings “The man said you were dancing with no shoes on amid the broken glass and dog sh- and cigarette ends,” you know you’re in for no ordinary ride. Or “Nothing”, a strange, dark, childhood memory with the lines, “Now I’m running for the train/Same train everyone is running for/ Before there’s nothing to take you where you want to go/Maybe I’ll find you there/ Maybe I’ll find nothing.”
“Not In Love” sounds like a lost Roy Orbison song; “Sweet California” is a bittersweet love song to her adopted state; and “The Thing They Don’t Tell You About Girls” finds her balanced on a roof, “Just to hear my heart still beat.”
The album ends with a duet, “1000 Years Before I Met You”—Sylvie and Gelb toughing it out like a countrified Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, with Sylvie singing, “Well go on, put your clothes on and walk right out the door/Don’t want to see you when the sun creeps through the blind/ If you’re thinking I’ll come running and beg you back for more/Then baby you’ve been drinking more than I.”
As one writer noted, “These are songs that persuade us to curl up with them, then bite when we’re warm and cozy.”
The band on BLUE ON BLUE consists of Gelb, Thoger Lund, Gabriel Sullivan and Brian Lopez from Tucson, plus Australian Matt Wilkinson and Jim White (Wrong-Eyed Jesus) from Athens, Georgia. Sylvie plays ukulele—an instrument she first started playing in 2005.
“I’d always thought of the uke as a toy”, she says, “a little handful of happiness. But not any more. From the moment I picked it up, I fell in love. A ukulele has a sad, fractured sweetness, like a broken harp. And a modesty. It doesn’t try to impress you, it almost apologizes for being there.” Abandoning her piano and guitar, her songs “came through this tiny instrument with all their heartbreak and truth intact.”
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Throughout history, philosophers, politicians, thinkers, leaders, and artists ponder the same question. At one point, they all query, “Why are we here?” Michael Doucet offers what might be the answer…
“To have a good time,” he grins. “That’s why we’re here. It’s pretty simple when you break it down.”
The GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, artist, founder of BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, National Endowment of the Arts Fellow, and Cajun legend crafts the quintessential Louisiana soundtrack to a good time on his new solo album, Lâcher Prise [Compass Records]. Joined by Sarah Quintana [vocals, guitar], Chad Viator [guitar], Chris French [bass], and Jim Kolacek [drums], he stirs up a sweet and simmering brew of Acadian tradition, swamp soul, and infectious grooves.
In many ways, the moniker embodies the spirit of these five musicians.
“In French, Lâcher Prise means ‘let go’,” Doucet explains. “It’s also a Buddhist term. When it came to making this music, it was just total freedom. The new songs were different from what I typically do, so we formed a group of great people and musicians. I’ve reached a point in my life and career where I can do whatever the hell I want to do. There’s freedom for everybody because of the mutual respect though.”
Fittingly, the seeds of the band can be traced back to Mardi Gras 2018. Ambling around the streets of New Orleans among friends, Michael found himself at a favorite local watering hole. Amidst the costumed crowd, “a girl in a pink wig and dress” struck up a conversation with him about everything from relationships to music. That girl happened to be Sarah.
Upon sharing some of her music, Michael arranged an informal jam session.
“We played, and it was just magic,” he recalls. “We did our first gig two weeks later. It was funny because when we met after the party, I didn’t even recognize her without the wig,” he laughs.
The new band, now known as Michael Doucet avec Lâcher Prise, recorded the ten songs comprising the debut in just three days at Dockside in Maurice, Louisiana—a hallowed studio that has hosted everyone from Dr. John to Allen Toussaint, and Rod Stewart to Arcade Fire. The triumvirate of Doucet, Viator, and Compass Records co-founder Garry West produced, and friends including Sarah Dugas [The Duhks], Reese Wynans [Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa], and Jim Hoke [NRBQ] lent their respective talents to the end result.
Together, they tapped into a distinct and dynamic vibe evocative of the region.
“This isn’t necessarily Cajun music; it’s Southwest Louisiana music,” Doucet says. “This is music we like to play, and we have a lot of fun doing it. We let the magic happen. There was a total live feeling.”
The opener “Water, Water” coasts along on waves of fiddle and accordion before culminating on a hummable chant. Under this deluge of energy, the track tells an unbelievable story.
“We obviously have a problem with water in Louisiana,” he says. “About three years ago, there was a thunderstorm over Lafayette and the Parish, raining 24 inches in 24 hours. It flooded everything. I had to go rescue my daughter-in-law. When I came back, my friends got flooded. The chorus just came to me.”
Harnessing uncontainable energy, the group tracked Boozoo Chavis’ “Lula Lula Don’t You Go to Bingo” in just one take on the spot with its rollicking rhythms, vocal call-and-response, and Doucet’s spirited fiddle. Elsewhere, “Walkin’ On A Mardis Gras Day” strolls through a steady marching band beat as Michael’s deep delivery takes hold on what he describes as “one of the truest love songs I’ve ever written, in a way—not about losing or gaining love, but just being in love.”
“Bad Woman” integrates a Spanish flair as it paints a portrait of a fiery femme fatale. Then, there’s “Marie Catin.” Alternating between French verses and an English refrain, it nods to tradition as it transmits a relatable message, “You have me under your skin, so you can never forget me, but now I have you under my skin.” Everything culminates on “Cajun Gypsy.” A collaboration with Turtle Island Quartet, the instrumental illuminates both the virtuosity of the Quartet and the ‘Lâcher Prise’ spirit of Doucet’s fiddle.
The new band (an ancillary project to BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet) reflects the spirit of its founder’s own legacy, while at the same time treading new territory. Throughout a career spanning four decades, dozens of albums, and hundreds upon hundreds of gigs, Michael has fueled the beating heart of Cajun music. Fronting BeauSoleil, he has received 12 GRAMMY® nominations, notched two wins, and made history as the “first Cajun band to win a GRAMMY®.” Along his musical journey Doucet has shared stages with the likes of Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, among others, and beyond legendary festival sets, the group appeared on the HBO series Treme and earned acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, and more. As a fifth generation Acadian, he remains a staunch historical advocate as well. The National Endowment of the Arts exalted his work with a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship, and United States Artists bestowed upon him the Berresford Prize/USA Fellowship in 2007.
“My aura, my life, and my music are wrapped up in this culture,” he says. “I want to lay a groundwork for young people to learn about it. The culture permeates me. That’s my philosophy. I’m being true and transparent.”
Lâcher Prise ultimately provides another avenue for the expression of his truth.
“Some of the record is cerebral, but it’s got a different feeling overall,” he leaves off. “All of the musicians are amazing. It’s not just my record; it’s ours. I have so much confidence in those guys and gal. Most of all, I hope everyone has as much fun listening to it as we did making it.”
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Adam and David Moss began hearing Everly Brothers comparisons long before they officially joined their voices together as folk duo The Brother Brothers. But not even the late Phil and Don Everly, one of the greatest DNA-sharing duos in modern music history, could claim the kind of vocal symmetry Adam and David create. Harmonies just don’t get any closer than those sung by siblings who came from the same egg.
The twins, raised in Peoria, Illinois, weren’t much older than toddlers when they started singing along to the Everlys, The Beach Boys, and other artists their dad played for them. Lulled to sleep nightly by The Beatles’ White Album, they made up their own harmonies to accompany Paul McCartney’s vocal on “I Will” when they were 6.
That song was one of the first they chose for their third Compass Records release, Cover to Cover, on which they pay homage to formative influences and favorite songwriters with a mix of beloved classics and songs they want more people to hear — each filtered through the brothers’ unique musical mix of folk, bluegrass, jazz and other idioms.
Among their eclectic picks: Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” James Taylor’s “You Can Close Your Eyes,” Hoagy Carmichael’s “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes),” Robert Earl Keen’s “Feelin’ Good Again,” Richard Thompson’s “Waltzing’s for Dreamers,” Judee Sill’s “Rugged Road” and Tom Waits’ “Flowers Grave.” They also chose Harley Allen’s “High Sierra,” popularized by Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt on their Trio II album, and “If You Ain’t Got Love,” by Chas Justus of Lafayette, Louisiana dance band the Revelers.
Of course, they didn’t just choose tunes based on popularity or admiration. Each has a story, a connection. Some, like “I Will” and “Feelin’ Good Again,” represent fond memories — the latter of their years in Austin, Texas, during which they caught many REK shows when they weren’t performing (Adam in Green Mountain Grass and David in Blue Hit). Others, like “That’s How I Got to Memphis” and “Rugged Road,” were discoveries, products of their own or someone else’s rabbit hole dives.
“We are, first and foremost, music scholars; we are always learning, exploring, figuring out who played on what and who wrote this and who wrote that,” explains David.
They’re not just casual scholars, either; both hold music degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their formal music education began when they entered an arts magnet school, where they started studying piano and violin in second grade.
“David switched to the cello in third grade because he didn’t want to be playing the same instrument as me,” Adam relates. “We wanted to learn other stuff, but our mom was pretty adamant that we not play horns in the house. No drums.” (He still holds that against her, he jokes.) David has since added guitar; Adam plays violin/fiddle, keyboards and banjo, though Cover to Cover features Alison Brown’s banjo work. It also features Lake Street Dive vocalist Rachael Price and her sister, Emily, on “I Get Along Without You”; Sarah Jarosz, who plays mandolin on fellow Texan Keen’s song and harmonizes on “You Can Close Your Eyes”; Jarosz’s bandmate, Jeff Picker, who plays lead acoustic guitar and bass on “These Days”; and Michaela Anne, who adds high harmonies to “High Sierra.” The Brother Brothers have toured with Lake Street Dive and Jarosz, as well as Keb’ Mo’, Shakey Graves, Big Thief and others. But in several cases, their collaborations grew from friendships first. They’ve made many while following each other to Austin, Boston and New York.
For six of his 10 years in the Big Apple, David shared a house with Lake Street Dive bassist Bridget Kearney. That’s where the brothers figured out they should quit “orbiting around each other” and actually come together as a musical unit. After releasing their first EP in 2017, they signed with Compass. Both their 2018 debut album, Some People I Know, and 2021 follow-up, Calla Lily, earned wide praise and a large streaming audience.
Thethoughtful selections and beautiful arrangements on Cover to Cover will undoubtedly earn them more — as well as comparisons to contemporaries the Milk Carton Kids and Secret Sisters (the twins like to mention David Rawlings and Gillian Welch as reference points).
Surprisingly, they didn’t have a hard time deciding which songs made the final cut. According to David, “These are other people’s songs, but we really needed to make them our own. We didn’t want to be singing somebody’s song that we didn’t fully identify with and didn’t feel like us. In the end, we just picked the ones that we enjoyed doing the most.”
Some of that decision-making occurred long-distance, after both chose to escape New York rents during COVID. David and his fiancée bought a camper and traveled until she was offered a job at Miami City Ballet School. Adam’s then-new girlfriend, who had just moved to the city and didn’t know many people, suggested hanging temporarily at her mom’s place in Santa Barbara, California. But they liked the vibe so much, they stayed.
As for how they got to “…Memphis” — and the rest of these songs, they traveled some interesting routes. Adam did a deep Tom T. Hall dive after hearing some of Americana’s most revered singer-songwriters praise him during a song-pull performance. He wasn’t all that moved, but years later, David discovered “That’s How I Got To Memphis.” Then Adam started hearing it everywhere, and got hooked.
“It’s so well written and so meaningful,” David says. “It’s everything a country song should be.” Their slightly more upbeat version has a soulful, bluesy groove.
Regarding “These Days,” on which they mesh crystalline harmonies and gorgeous guitar interludes, Adam says, “This song is possibly the reason we got together as a duo. We soundcheck with it every show, and drive down the road marveling at the fact that Jackson Browne could have written this song with such a wise sentiment at such a young age.”
Adds David: “I was watching some St. Vincent videos and heard her doing Nico’s version, and I was just so transfixed. So I set out to learn it, but I learned St. Vincent’s version. Then I heard Nico’s and got super into Jackson Browne — not that I hadn’t already been. But I probably heard the original long after I’d heard about five different other versions. So this is kind of a conglomerate.”
Ryan Scott’s slide guitar gives “You Can Close Your Eyes” a slightly mournful vibe, appropriate for a line like “you can sing this song when I’m gone” — in what they call “one of the greatest choruses ever written.”
“If You Ain’t Got Love,” a rock ‘n’ roll jam with a twang and straight-outta-Memphis Wurlitzer electric piano, is included because they love the band. “What’s a cover record without a song by one of your friends?,” they note. “This one transports us to the two-stepping dance parties we’ve come to love and miss.”
After a friend turned them on to late songwriter Judee Sill, the pair became obsessed. Though they found “Rugged Road” a challenge to make their own, they wanted to recognize “one of the unsung heroes of the female-songwriter ’70s.”
They’re not sure how they came across “I Get Along Without You,” but claim Chet Baker’s version “is a dream — maybe one of the most perfect performances by any musician.” They were thrilled to arrange an a cappella version with the Price sisters.
Of their delightful bluegrass arrangement of “Feelin’ Good Again,” they note, “This song speaks for itself as the feel good song of the century.”
They plucked Thompson’s “Waltzing’s for Dreamers,” delivered with melancholy elegance as a stately waltz, from deep in his catalog. “Thompson songs are so legendary, but nobody I know has heard that song and it’s so beautiful,” David says. “Even if only my friends listen to this album, they’re gonna get to know this song.”
Their older brother recommended “High Sierra” — which proved perfect for third harmonies by their friend Michaela Anne, in a simplified arrangement that give the lovely melody, lyrics and harmonies the emphasis they deserve.
“Blue Virginia Blues,” one of Adam’s favorite bluegrass songs, apparently is also favored by the Punch Brothers’ Chris Eldridge, who would call it out during bluegrass jams they played in New York. “He has the best taste in bluegrass music of anybody I’ve ever heard,” Adam praises.
They weren’t sure they could do justice to Waits, a major influence, with “Flowers Grave,” but once they created their exquisite violin and cello arrangement, they knew they nailed it. “It’s not the radio hit of the album,” Adam notes. “But I think it’s our smartest arrangement for sure.”
On an album full of so many, that might be debatable. Fortunately, listeners won’t have to choose, because all 12 are sparkling gems.
At a time when hope and forgiveness seem in short supply, roots singer-songwriter Amy Ray gives us all a shot in the arm with her ninth solo album, Holler, due September 28 from Daemon Records.
Still thriving as one half of GRAMMY-winning folk duo Indigo Girls, Ray has also produced a vital body of solo work over five studio albums and three live records (beginning with 2001’s Stag) that explores more deeply her roots in punk and classic country music.
2014’s Goodnight Tender delved into the rich sonic tradition of old-style country music-making that had long-captured Ray’s imagination, but never fully made it into her work—equal-parts Appalachian gospel and late-night honky tonk.
That song cycle navigated themes of darkness and heartbreak, calling to mind the words of Southern greats like Hank Williams and Eudora Welty. American Songwriter called it “beautifully well-done” and PopMatters called it “wise” and “vulnerable.”
But, while many of those reviews rightly focused on Ray’s ability to embody her songwriting, few focused on the impressive work of her backing musicians. Finding their spark on Goodnight Tender, Ray’s firecracker backing band has evolved into a tight unit over four years of on and off touring.
Critics are unlikely to miss them on Holler.
Led by shape-shifting multi-instrumentalist Jeff Fielder on guitars, dobro, bass, and mandolin; Ray’s band—Matt Smith on pedal steel, dobro, and guitar; Adrian Carter on fiddle and guitar; Kerry Brooks on upright bass and mandolin; Jim Brock on drums and percussion; Alison Brown on banjo, and Kofi Burbridge of Tedeschi Trucks Band on keys—has long since fused into a level of cohesion more typical of a family band.
With the group’s intuitive chops serving as a foundation, Ray, together with producer Brian Speiser, takes things further with Holler.
She was partially inspired by Jim Ford’s 1969 cult-classic country album Harlan County, “I had that in my mind, musically. I knew I wanted horns and strings to bump it up to that level, to get that swagger into it.”
To boot, she’s called upon the masterful slide guitar of Derek Trucks (Tedeschi Trucks Band, the Allman Brothers), and vocal harmonies from Vince Gill, Brandi Carlile, the Wood Brothers, Lucy Wainwright-Roche, Phil Cook, and Justin Vernon.
The bulk of Holler was tracked live over an intensive nine-day period at Asheville, North Carolina’s Echo Mountain Recording studio. Ray turned once again to Goodnight Tender producer Brian Speiser, who has also worked with Indigo Girls and Tedeschi Trucks Band. Alongside Speiser behind the board was engineer, (Tedeschi Trucks Band). Working mostly fourteen and eighteen-hour days with the band, a full string and horn section, and reels upon reels of analog tape, the team beautifully captured what is indisputably Ray’s most sonically ambitious solo record to date.
Indeed, all of her musical interests blend beautifully on Holler, from the emotionally gripping title track, which she finished writing during the week of recording in Asheville, to the punk frenzy and brass-section blast of “Sparrow’s Boogie,” and beyond.
Fans of Goodnight Tender will love Brown’s banjo on “Dadgum Down,” the pep talk to indie artists on “Tonight I’m Paying the Rent,” and the Elizabeth Cotten-influenced “Fine with the Dark.”
But Ray’s greatest skill has always been her knack for straddling the line between the personal and the political. Ray tackles Southern identity and racism in “Sure Feels Good Anyway,” and “Didn’t Know a Damn Thing,” while in “Bondsman (Evening in Missouri)” she paints a scene of poverty and hardship in the Ozark mountain region.
So does “Jesus Was a Walking Man.” Though she wrote it well before the crisis of family separations at the Southern U.S. border, the song bears a timely message for the listener: “Jesus would’ve let ‘em in.” To cap off the track, she called on the oratory prowess of former SNCC Freedom Singer Rutha Mae Harris, driving several hours to Albany, Georgia, just to capture Harris’s voice, field recording-style.
Indeed, it’s that kind of artistic commitment that has made Ray’s career so full of unforgettable songs, and Holler feels like a culmination. We can only hope for more.
Fronted by acclaimed violinist Jeremy Kittel (formerly of the GRAMMY award-winning Turtle Island Quartet), contemporary string quintet Kittel & Co. has announced their ethos-centric debut album Whorls, out June 29 on Compass Records. Inhabiting the space between classical and acoustic roots, Celtic and bluegrass aesthetics, folk and jazz sensibilities, Whorls is an 11-track compilation of visceral, yet precise musicianship—accompanied on one track by the ghostly harmonies of Sarah Jarosz.
Kittel demonstrated a similar scope as a composer-arranger-collaborator for such diverse artists as My Morning Jacket, Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, and Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn. Now, the Brooklyn-based artist has built his own repertoire of music for a wholly original new group.
Comprised of Kittel, mandolin phenom Josh Pinkham (named “the future of the mandolin” by Mandolin Magazine), genre-bending guitarist Quinn Bachand (a presidential scholar at Berklee College of Music), transcendent cellist Nathaniel Smith (as heard with Sarah Jarosz and Kacey Musgraves), and hammer-dulcimer wizard Simon Chrisman (acclaimed for bringing a new tonal flexibility to the instrument), Kittel & Co. captures a sonic landscape that is equally as unpredictable as it is captivating.
The group’s debut record Whorls refers to patterns of spirals, an apt metaphor for the undulation between the outsize skills and free-spirited instincts that drive its sound. The album’s first single “Pando” was originally written for the Detroit Symphony, and it was driven by a compelling violin melody that evolves from its timid entrance to urgent plight. The record’s scope ranges from buoyant rhythmic undercurrent of tracks like “The Boxing Reels” to the longingly bittersweet “Home in the World”—a song named in honor of the late journalist Daniel Pearl and a collection of his writings.
The concept of bringing people together underlies much of Whorls. “These instruments have a rich tradition of playing dance music; they were the way everyone got down, say, 150 years ago. Acoustic string bands in a room,” says Kittel. “Locking this in rhythmically and sonically, finding the balance of intensity—that’s been really exciting.”
During his years as lead singer and main songwriter of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Glen Phillips helped to create the band’s elegant folk/pop sound with honest, introspective lyrics that forged a close bond with their fans. When Toad went on hiatus, he launched a solo career with Abulum, and stayed busy collaborating with other artists on various projects including Mutual Admiration Society, with members of Nickel Creek and Remote Tree Children, an experimental outing with John Morgan Askew.
“Until recently, I’ve seldom allowed myself to stay in one place for very long,” Phillips says, explaining the genesis of his new album, THERE IS SO MUCH HERE. “I was lucky during the COVID lockdown to move in with my girlfriend, now fiancée, and to stay home for the longest stretch I’ve had since the birth of my daughter, 20 years ago. I began noticing the little things. After a life of travel and seeking out peak experiences, I began to appreciate the subtle beauty of sitting still.
“I’ve been playing a songwriting game with Texas folksinger Matt The Electrician, for about ten years. Every Friday, he sends out a title. We have a week to write a song that includes it. The process allows me to write songs I wouldn’t write on my own. When my friend John [Morgan Askew] asked me to come up to his studio and make music, I said, ‘Yes!’ I collected a bunch of the new songs and headed up to Bocce Studios, in Vancouver, WA. John invited drummer Ji Tanzer and bass player – / – multi-instrumentalist Dave Depper along. When we started playing, I wasn’t sure we were making an album, but as the process unfolded, the songs began to make sense to me.
Phillips’ previous solo record, SWALLOWED BY THE NEW, was about grief, a post-divorce outing while THERE IS SO MUCH HERE finds Phillips writing love songs again focusing on gratitude, beauty and staying present. “With this batch of songs, I was suddenly hopeful again, knowing you can never know what the outcome of any action, or inaction, is going to be. There’s no pure happy ending – the world is a mess, the future is uncertain – but I find found truth in the poet Mary Oliver’s words: ‘Attention is the beginning of devotion.’ I was suddenly in a state of being that wasn’t about my loss. I woke up and things felt doable again.”
The 11 tracks on the album move between quiet love songs and outright rockers that consider the multi-faceted meanings hidden in our everyday lives. “Stone Throat” is a midtempo rocker that looks at a couple in a new relationship, trying to find the balance between desire and responsibility, or as Phillips sings, “trying to find the balance, between the sacred and the street.” There’s a hint of new wave ska in the rhythm of “I Was a Riot,” a song that casts a compassionate eye on the end of a relationship. “The arrangement nods to Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp,” Phillips says. “Graham Mabey is one of the greatest bass players of all time, so we had him in mind when laying down the bass part.”
The COVID lockdown-inspired “The Sound of Drinking,” is an appreciation of the familiar things in life, like drinking a glass of water on your back porch. Phillips plays soft acoustic guitar and sighs a lyric of gratitude for simple pleasures.
“Call The Moondust” is the most metaphysical song in the set. There’s a dash of secular gospel in Depper’s piano, and ambient effects that suggest the vastness of the cosmos. Phillips delivers an emotional performance over a tense arrangement that hints at the wonders of the universe. “The beauty of life is in its mystery,” Phillips states. “If we think we have an answer, we’re deluding ourselves. Everything in creation produces a vibration. The universe itself is a song. The subset of human songwriting is a tiny portion of all the harmony in the universe.
“As I sat still during the lockdown, I realized how much is always here – in the space around me, in the sensations of my body, in the sounds and smells and tastes and thoughts that emerge and drift away. It’s not a novel concept, but it is a novel experience when you’ve spent your life running from one thing to another.”
Ultimately, as Phillips reflects on the album, he shares: “This is an album about showing up for what is and letting it be enough.”