FELiCE BROTHERS - VALLEY of ABANDONED SONGS

ROUTES & BRANCHES

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

July 7, 2024

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

With Fourth of July falling awkwardly on a Thursday, this week is generally an off-week for promoters, labels, and other sources of new stuff. While we don't appreciate this, and it makes us itchy, it also gives us an opportunity to rein in some of the very good new songs that might otherwise have been left on the cutting room floor with the peanut shells. 

Last December with zero hoopla Felice Brothers made a new collection available only via Bandcamp. Asylum On the Hill was produced by Nate Wood and seemed for all purposes like a proper Felice Brothers project. Born in Upstate New York, Ian, Simone, and James Felice and their friends began their career by releasing a couple decade-defining classics in 2007's Tonight At the Arizona and '08's self-titled collection. Both spoke to their busking spirit, recorded in chicken coops and barns with the dirt and dust still clinging to the tape. Even as Simone departed and the band experimented with new musical elements, as they migrated from label to label (from Team Love to Fat Possum to Dualtone to Yep Roc), Felice Brothers have proven to be a reliable source for new stuff that matters. 

While the intention was to add the songs that compose Valley Of Abandoned Songs only to Bandcamp alongside Asylum, longtime friend and collaborator Conor Oberst offered to provide a formal release on his new label, Million Stars. Felice Brothers had served as Oberst's backing band on his 2016 Salutations collection and subsequent tour, and the Bright Eyes frontman had released a pair of earlier Felice projects under his Team Love imprint. While Valley is composed of demos and orphan songs from previous sessions, the offhand nature of the new songs revives the scrappy appeal of those early projects. 

As a vocalist and songwriter, Ian Felice delivers a distinct product, balanced between trad folk, 60s lyricism, and a contemporary punk esthetic. While recent records have favored a streak of social commentary, Valley Of Abandoned Songs bears a more pastoral, contemplative stamp, as much as his songs can be pinned down in any direct sense. On the endearingly offbeat "So Long John", he memorializes late poet John Ashbery: I'm strung out on the chord / Pounding a dark keyboard / And I don't care where I'm slouching toward. With approximately on-tune whistling to accompany the bare acoustic guitar and percussion, there is a simplicity and an appropriate lyrical sadness to the song. A resigned spirit similarly overhangs "Let Me Ride Away With the Horsemen", a hymnlike track that reads almost like a Hieronymus Bosch tableau: Now I'm on a cliff / Looking down at the world / On a horse named Hallelujah. 

Valley features the same quartet that's worked together since 2019's Undress LP: Ian on guitar and vocals, with James on keys; Jesske Hume plays bass, with Will Lawrence handling percussion. While a spirited accordion anchored much of the brothers' early sound, most of these new sessions are built around James' piano. On "Stranger's Arms" it assumes a tuneful country flair: Two runaways sitting in the dark / Sharing a loaf of bread / While a sparrow mends their coats / With a silver thread. James' organ grounds "Younger As the Day Goes By", a cut that like much of Valley sounds recorded live. It's a terrifyingly eloquent world, declares "New York By Moonlight", an urban elegy awash under overcast city skies. 

While we are steadfast in our strong reluctance to liken any artist to Dylan, it's not inaccurate to recognize that Ian Felice's lyrical gifts include a similarly fanciful way with characterization, from the anthropomorphic Racoon, Rooster, and Crow on an ill-fated fishing trip, to the long dead street musician or the titular Crime Scene Queen, her calling card a knife in a feathered pillow. Felice is not a Dylan knockoff, but over the space of a dozen albums has grown into an eloquent documenter of the absurd and the offbeat, the heartfelt and even the whimsical. To boot, his untrained nasal delivery is the perfect vehicle to deliver his visions. "Tomorrow Is Just a Dream Away" is a strummy folk number that swells with dramatic strings: It's a more or less shitty world, he calls. Fanatical imperialists abound / And I know nothing much has changed / It's still a more or less violent prairie town. "Flowers By the Roadside" is a shuffling acoustic number that highlights the occasionally psychedelic element to his writing: I'm just watching the butterflies / Monarchs of a monstrous size / Flutter in the sky. 

The charmingly ragged collection closes with a pair of earnestly yearning tracks. "It's Midnight and the Doves Are In Tears" is a lovely, lilting anti-war song that offers one of Ian's strongest vocals: From the jawbone of a donkey / To the atom bomb / Science and progress / What have you done. Both tunes include James Felice's accordion, with the heartbreakingly sweet "To Be a Papa" resolving to face the world's absurdities hand-in-hand: Let the rain wash the dishes. While December's Asylum actually proves to be a cleaner, more cohesive collection, it's these Abandoned Songs that contain the charm and charge that have characterized Felice Brothers' drunken singalongs since their streetcorner origins. Laugh and the world laughs with you / Cry and the world turns away. 

At least a couple Episodes have passed since we took account of what's been added to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, our restlessly updated new release calendar. Of course, lots has been added during that time, but we'll mention just a couple higher profile things. Reckless Kelly have responded to rumors of a new collection with confirmation that something is afoot. Last Frontier will be landing on shelves on September 13 (No Big Deal). Bill Callahan has plans to share a set recorded live in Chicago. Resuscitate! finds the avant-folker leading an ensemble Jim White, Matt Kinsey, and several guests during his tour behind 2022's YTILAER collection (Drag City, Jul 26). Pony Bradshaw will release the final in an intended trilogy of records on August 16. Thus Spoke the Fool follows Calico Jim and North Georgia Rounder (Soundly). MJ Lenderman has set a September 6 street date for the follow-up studio record to 2022's Boat Songs. The Wednesday guitarist will release Manning Fireworks on Anti Records. Finally (for now), we're pleased to announce Bright Eyes is ready for a long-awaited new LP. Five Dice All Threes is scheduled for a September 20 appearance, via Dead Oceans. 

ROUTES-cast July 7, 2024

- Red Clay Strays, "Drowning" Made By These Moments  (RCA, Jul 26)

- Kaitlin Butts, "Followed You To Vegas" Roadrunner!  (Soundly, 24)

- Zach Bryan, "28" Great American Bar Scene  (Beltin' Bronco, 24)

- Miranda Lambert, "Dammit Randy" single  (Vanner, 24)  D

- Silverada, "Stubborn Son" Silverada  (Prairie Rose, 24)

- Ashley Monroe, "Hot Rod Pipe Dream" single  (Mountainrose Sparrow, 24)  D

- Midland, "Lucky Sometimes" Barely Blue  (Big Machine, Sep 20)  D

- Steve Earle, "Copperhead Road (live)" Alone Again ... Live  (Howe Sound, Jul 12)

- Elijah Ocean, "I'll Take the Pitcher" Loser's Holiday  (Ocean, Jul 19)  D

- Boy Golden, "Your Love (Where It's At)" For Eden  (Six Shooter, Jul 19)

- William Matheny, "I Hardly Ever Think About You" single  (Matheny, 24)  D

- Sammy Kay, "Don't Like Surprises" July 1960  (Sell the Heart, Jul 19)

- Adam Remnant, "Coming Down" single  (Coiled Myth, 24)  D

- LA Edwards, "El Camino" Pie Town  (Bitchin', 24)

- Rachel Baiman, "Vine That Ate the South (ft Nicholas Jamerson)" single  (Signature Sounds, 24)  D

^ Felice Brothers, "So Long John" Valley Of Abandoned Songs  (Million Stars, 24)

- Damnwells, "Pretty As Pittsburgh" Bad At Beautiful  (Poor Man, Aug 9)

- Wilco, "Say You Love Me" Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP  (dBpm, 24)

- T Hardy Morris, "Scarred But Smarter (ft David Barbe)" Let's Go Dancing  (Tasty Goody, 24) 

- Downhaul, "Sinker" single  (Self Aware, 24)  D

- Night Moves, "Caroline Goodbye" single  (Domino, 24)  D

- Why Bonnie, "Dotted Line" Wish On the Bone  (Fire Talk, Aug 30)

- Erisy Watt, "Anywhere With You" not either or but everything  (Watt, Oct 4)  D

- Amy Annelle, "Down and Out In Denver" The Toll  (High Plains Sigh, Jul 27)

- Jesse Welles, "God Abraham & Xanax" Hells Welles  (Welles, 24)  D

- David Newbould, "Rainy Day Heart" Live In Germany  (Blackbird, 24)  D

- Lonesome Shack, "Monsoon Lightning" Song Of the Horse  (Owl Head, Jul 19)

- Valerie June, "Friendship (ft Carla Thomas, Stax Music Academy)" single  (Stax, 24)  D

- Nathaniel Rateliff & Night Sweats, "Everybody Wants Something" South Of Here  (Stax, 24)

- Longplayer, "My Dreams Of You" single  (RMD, 24)  D

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To enjoy our weekly Spotify ROUTES-cast, just open Spotify and search for "routesandbranches" to access this most recent playlist, as well as many others from past months.  Or click here for a preview: