ROUTES & BRANCHES  
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
August 25, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

... there's not a more lovely, more quiet, more intense record out this year ...

That's what I wrote in praise of Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster's 2016 Constant Stranger album, his first solo effort since stepping aside from the excellent Water Liars (his project alongside Andrew Bryant).  I remember leaning into the speakers in order to catch each intimate moment of hushed beauty.  While Stranger was a different beast than his work with Bryant (or last year's superb collaboration with Will Johnson), the songs continued to emanate from an insular place, speaking of surviving on smoke and gravel, and choking on brake dust.  He ended one interview by quoting deep Southern writer Harry Crews: Survival is triumph enough.

But there were passages on that earlier album that alluded to Kinkel-Schuster's new collection, Take Heart Take Care (Big Legal Mess, Aug 30).  There were fleeting flashes of hope that illuminated the grace hidden in Crews' line, celebrating the ability of the world's jagged people to abide.  It's a seemingly minor adjustment in spirit, but a realignment of perspective that makes all the difference in the world on these new songs.  JPKS has spoken of the challenge of expressing gratitude and belonging in a genuine manner.  He's called Take Heart "a collection of songs that hold a light to the joys and comforts of life not given up on".  Take heart, take care, hold on.

God bless him, Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster draws much of his guidance from literature, from writers like Barry Hannah and Charles Portis.  An extended passage from the great William Boyle welcomes us to his website with a piece of writing light years better than you'll find here: We're in deeply hopeful territory.  Even the overall acoustics of the new record speak to turning a corner into the light.  Take Heart is not an especially quiet collection, built on electric guitar and the singer's increasingly confident vocal.  "Plenty Wonder" introduces the CD with a sturdy guitar hook, adding an undercurrent of organ to the reflection about striking a balance in relationship: There's plenty of wonder in this world still to be found.

This is still a JPKS record, and we're never asked to avert our ears from life's darker elements.  With buzzing guitars and overcast chords, the acerbic "Flies on Shit" accuses an unnamed figure: There's a price you pay to put folks on their knees.  A later song acknowledges: You'll tire of losing / Games to luck / When death is cheating / And he don't give a fuck.  But the writer never promises stuff will work out, not once does he fall back on easy comfort.  Instead, Kinkel-Schuster counsels patience, discernment and gratitude.  The simple heart of that affirming gospel beats on "Poor Relations":  Take it easy, and take it as it comes.

Boyle writes of "this ability to access deceptively simple moments and turn them into epiphanies about kindness and wonder and human communion".  "Take Heart" is a stunning acoustic piece, Kinkel-Schuster's high-lonesome voice soaring like Jim James. There's an ease and a comfort even as he navigates one of the record's most beautifully poetic passages: Time is the mender / Whose strange mechanics / Yet untold / Bid us rise entwined together.  JPKS is typically a more direct poet, but he is capable of magic.  Read it again, then hold it to your heart.

Friends sometimes ask how I can bear reading some of the "Southern gothic" authors I enjoy.  Circumstances are rarely easy, and happy endings are unheard of.  Like those artists, Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster can be compassionate and forgiving.  Looking back at a photo of a mother and father on the chiming "Educated Guesses": Have you ever wondered how they were when they were younger / And the only thing they had to lose was faith.  On "Name What You Are" or the beautiful closer "Held My Own", he encourages listeners to extend that compassion to themselves: It's a hard hard thing to believe in yourself.  In their own way the lines echo those of Crews, embracing the strength in survival regardless of any more traditional victory.  He closes the album, hope stirring in his final words: Someday I will say I held my own.

Previously, Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster has cited Seventeenth-Century English Poet John Milton: The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.  On Take Heart Take Care, the artist recognizes that we can't always effect the change we want when circumstances are beyond our control.  Here at R&B, I'll never be the one to dwell on the state of our nation in a political sense, I won't be the place where you discover these things.  Instead, like JPKS I hope to help you recognize the current of meaning coursing through our everyday moments.  Because that might be where we find our redemption.  In "Friend of Mine", one of the CD's most melodic offerings, the writer seems to agree: Never since have seasons seemed to stay so long / Now they come and go like old top 40 songs / I'd do the dishes, dump the trash and meet the night / With 20 dollars cash to sew the world up tight.  Take heart, take care.

- Amy Rigby, "Summer of My Wasted Youth" 18 Again: An Anthology  (Koch, 02)
- GospelbeacH, "Bad Habits" Let it Burn  (Alive Naturalsound, Oct 4)
- Sierra Ferrell, "Washington By the Sea" Washington By the Sea  (Ferrell, 19)
- Allison Moorer, "Rock and the Hill" Blood  (Autoetic, Oct 25)  D
- Darrin Bradbury, "Breakfast" Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs  (Anti, Sep 20)
- Spirit Family Reunion, "When I Get Home" Ride For Free  (SFR, 19)
- Dalton Domino, "Dead Roses" Songs From the Exile  (Lightning Rod, 19)
- Them Coulee Boys, "Die Happy" Die Happy  (TCB, 19)
- Jay Bennett, "Wide Open" Magnificent Defeat  (Ryko, 06)
- Leslie Stevens, "You Don't Have To Be So Tough" Sinner  (LyricLand, 19)
- Miranda Lambert, "Bluebird" Wildcard  (Vanner, Nov 1)
- Jason Hawk Harris, "Confused" Love & the Dark  (Bloodshot, 19)
- Kacey Musgraves, "Blowin' Smoke" Same Trailer Different Park  (Mercury, 13)
- Dead South, "Alabama People" Sugar & Joy  (Six Shooter, Oct 11)
- Kill County, "No Surrender" Everything Must Die  (573668 Records, 19)
- Sturgill Simpson, "Sing Along" Sound & Fury  (Elektra, Sep 27)
- Charley Crockett, "5 More Miles" The Valley  (Son of Davy, Sep 20)
- Murder by Death, "Rumbrave" Red of Tooth and Claw  (Vagrant, 08)
- Esther Rose, "Five Minute Drive" You Made It This Far  (Father/Daughter, 19)
- Lillie Mae, "Whole Blue Heart" Other Girls  (Third Man, 19)
- Simon Joyner, "Tongue of a Child" Pocket Moon  (Grapefruit, Oct 25)  D
- Minus 5, "Blue Rickenbacker" Scott the Hoople in the Dungeon of Horror  (Yep Roc, 17)
- Itasca, "Bess's Dance" Spring  (Paradise of Bachelors, Nov 1)  D
- Joan Shelley, "The Fading" Like the River Loves the Sea  (No Quarter, Aug 30)
- First Aid Kit, "Strange Beauty" single  (Columbia, 19)  D
- Deer Tick, "Dream's in the Ditch" Negativity  (Partisan, 13)
- Molly Sarle, "Twisted" Karaoke Angel  (Partisan, Sep 20)
- Courtney Marie Andrews, "Downtown Train" Come On Up To the House: Women Sing Waits  (Dualtone, Nov 22)  D
- Ana Egge, "Ballad of the Poor Child (feat. Iris Dement)" Is It the Kiss  (StorySound, Sep 6)
- Little Teeth, "Avondale" Redefining Home  (Gunner, 19)

Great to know that Matt the Electrician is setting his sites on something new, looking for some support for a Tucker Martine-produced record.  Also this week, First Aid Kit threw their hat in the teeming ring of artists paying tribute to the late David Berman.  The sisters have issued a single featuring an original and a Silver Jews cover.  We now have a release date for Sturgill Simpson's seemingly ambitious record/anime project, Sound & Fury, which will doubtless stir up controversy upon its September 27 release.  Looking forward to both a new album and memoir by the talented Allison Moorer.  Both are called Blood, and will be issued the week of October 25.  With Itasca, we will herald the arrival of Spring in the depths of Fall, when Paradise of Bachelors releases the CD on November 1.  Finally, there's great promise in Come On Up To the House: Women Sing Waits.  Dualtone will be releasing the compilation on November 22, boasting a stellar line-up of artists like Moorer and her sister Shelby Lynne, Angie McMahon, Courtney Marie Andrews and more.  You'll find it all by clicking to connect with A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  See also your ROUTES-cast for this week:

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