BONNY LiGHT HORSEMAN - KEEP ME ON YOUR MiND/SEE YOU FREE

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

June 16, 2024

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

At eighteen songs, Bonny Light Horseman's third project embodies overflow and generosity, a spirit the trio likened to friends lingering long over a dining table messy with dirtied dishes and leftovers. Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson (Fruit Bats), and Josh Kaufman assembled at Justin Vernon's Eaux Claires Festival in 2018, gathered around a shared interest in exploring contemporary expressions of traditional folk music. The resulting 2020 self-titled collection, nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album, wasn't hard-and-fast folk music, though the trio's songs were variations on British trad, featuring Kaufman's more modern arrangements in support of Mitchell and Johnson's non-trad vocal delivery. Bonny Light Horseman's follow-up two years later, Rolling Golden Holy, would forego traditional songs for originals, still name-dropping familiar folk themes, but largely unmoored from trad. By this juncture, Bonny Light Horseman had seemingly become more than an indie folk supergroup, fostering their own identity around the interplay of those vocals and Kaufman's deceptively simple musicianship.

Which leaves us gathered around that table with these friends and a new double LP, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free. The genesis of this project came when Anais Mitchell happened upon a traditional, centuries-old Irish pub in County Cork, deciding it would serve as a perfect space for the trio's next recording. Roughly half of the new songs were set to tape in front of a live audience at the pub, with the remainder recorded at an upstate New York studio. Described as an ode to the blessed mess of our humanity, the outfit have succeeded in creating an appealingly loose, off-the-cuff spirit for both sessions, replacing polish with a warmth and immediacy that speaks to their folk roots. 

"Singing To the Mandolin" is a charmingly melodic track, with all present lending a voice to the chorus. Mitchell's lead suggests a slight melancholy in its domesticity: I saw the kids we once were / In that picture you sent me / Cupping a cig on the fire escape / Reeling a line of laundry. There is a Laurel Canyon vibe to "I Know You Know", with Eric D Johnson taking lead. Both singers contribute terrifically distinct vocals, but at least part of Bonny Light Horseman's magic is cast as those voices come together. "Lover Take It Easy" floats their harmonies upward with ooh's and Mike Lewis' breathy sax adding a third line.

Another arcing theme of Keep Me is found in the group's declaration, life is most lived when things aren't so perfect. This conviction shines through not so much as disappointment or regret as an embrace of the messiness of our lives, especially as we age. "When I Was Younger" features traded vocals, with the pub's creaky, aged piano at heart of Kaufman's arrangement (he lubricated the keys with olive oil). At the song's halfway point, an unkempt electric guitar growls to life, replaced by howls from the trio and the pub's denizens: When I was younger I used to seek pleasure / When I was younger I used to drink wine. That piano grounds "Old Dutch" as well, an arrangement that swells into the full groove and a call-and-response outro. These larger moments tip the record's vibe further from traditional folk roots, embracing a more contemporary roots jam sound. "Tumblin Down" adds a jangly country-rock lilt, especially with Johnson's delivery: Hit the trail in '78, my past strung out before me / God only knows how I found my way past the hounds of morning. 

In the generous mess that is Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, listeners will also discover tatters of jazz and gospel. For their third collection, Bonny Light Horseman add woodwinds and a more central bass (played by Annie Nero, Michael Lewis, and Cameron Ralston, with JT Bates on drums). "Your Arms (All the Time)" shuffles on brushed drums and asides from the sax: And your legs, your legs all the time / They were running like a pony by the oceanside / There was salt in the bedsheets where we slept at night. Both singers are able to embody this wider stylistic range, paired and twining on the gentle "Keep Me On Your Mind", departing into reverie on the improvisational "See You Free", reading like a cut from an early Hiss Golden Messenger collection. Add a dash of ecstatic electric guitar for good measure.

In our book, folk music isn't a static entity. As a genre, it involves dialogue and is bent by the breezes of a living tradition. In the opening half of this year, it's already delivered such a rich diversity from voices like Beth Gibbons, Myriam Gendron, Iron & Wine, Jessica Pratt, and many others. Bonny Light Horseman still wander down by the sally garden; they can still be troubled like a ship on a churning sea, or enraptured all covered in dew at your garden gates. But just as Anais Mitchell masterfully repurposed much older myths for her Hadestown musical, she joins Kaufman and Johnson in creatively, lovingly breathing new life into the old bones of Western roots music for Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free. 

ROUTES-cast June 16, 2024

- Deslondes, "Take Me Back" Roll It Out  (New West, Sep 6)  D

- Oliver Wood, "Have You No Shame (ft Katie Pruitt)" Fat Cat Silhouette  (Honey Jar, 24)

- Shelby Lynne, "Over and Over" single  (Monument, 24)  D

- Staples Jr Singers, "Living In This World Alone" Searching  (Luaka Bop, 24)

- Rose Hotel, "Illusion Anyway" A Pawn Surrender  (Strolling Bones, 24)

- Jason Hawk Harris, "Tell Me I'm Good For You" Breakup Songs Are Love Songs Too Vol 1 EP  (Bloodshot, 24)  D

- Justin Townes Earle, "Dreams" All In: Unreleased & Rarities  (New West, Aug 9)  D

- Rainy Eyes, "A Little Dream" Lonesome Highway  (Royal Potato Family, Jul 12)

- Dr Dog, "Love Struck (ft M Ward)" Dr Dog  (We Buy Gold, Jul 19)

- Futurebirds, "Solitaires" Easy Company  (Dualtone, Aug 9)

- Beachwood Sparks, "Gentle Samurai" Across the River Of Stars  (Curation, Jul 19)  

- Good Looks, "Day Of Judgement" Lived Here For a While  (New West, 24)

- Monsters Of Folk, "Sweet Silence" Monsters Of Folk (Deluxe)  (ATO, 242)

- Sadler Vaden, "New You" Dad Rock  (Vaden, 24)  D

- Johnny Irion, "Shoulder To Shoulder" Sleeping Soldiers Of Love  (Blackwing, Aug 9)

- Jeffrey Foucault, "Universal Fire" Universal Fire  (Fluff & Gravy, Sep 6)  D

- Cactus Blossoms, "There She Goes" Every Time I Think About You  (Walkie Talkie, Aug 30)  D

^ Bonny Light Horseman, "Singing To the Mandolin" Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free  (Jagjaguwar, 24)

- Delicate Steve, "I'll Be There" Delicate Steve Sings  (Anti, Aug 16)  D

- Jake Xerxes Fussell, "Gone To Hilo" When I'm Called  (Fat Possum, Jul 12)

- Dead Tongues, "Dreamer" Body Of Light  (Psychic Hotline, 24)

- Jeffrey Silverstein, "Cogs In the Wheel" Roseway EP  (Arrowhawk, 24)

- Red Clay Strays, "Devil In My Ear" Made By These Moments  (RCA, Jul 26)

- Jenny Don't & the Spurs, "Broken Hearted Blue" Broken Hearted Blue  (Fluff & Gravy, 24)

- Silverada, "Radio Wave" Silverada  (Prairie Rose, Jun 28)

- Denitia, "Back To You" Sunset Drive  (County Road, Sep 6)  D

- Wilder Blue, "Still In the Runnin'" single  (Hill Country, 24)  D

- Tony Trischka, "San Antonio Rose (ft Sierra Ferrell)" Earl Jam  (Down the Road, 24)

- Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, "Went To a Party" Indoor Safari  (Yep Roc, Sep 13)  D

- Hermanos Gutierrez, "It's All In Your Mind" Sonido Cosmico  (Easy Eye, 24)

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