ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
July 19, 2020
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
I began this Routes & Branches thing with a whimper back in the Summer of 2008. I had just moved from Oregon to Colorado, gradually settling into a position as Music Director of an area community radio station. Of course, I had no idea what would become of my new hobby, nor the spectacular heights I would reach as writer for a small, out of the way blog. But one of the very first Episodes featured a picture of a young, laughing Samantha Crain, an Oklahoma singer-songwriter who had just landed her Confiscation EP on the fledgling Ramseur Records. The project secured a spot in Young Scott's year-end favorites list for '08, alongside stuff from Alejandro Escovedo, Felice Brothers and since forgotten gems by Will Quinlan and Danielle Talamini.
I kept pace with Samantha Crain over the years, as she soon abandoned her Midnight Shivers backing band, extending her artistic reach from album to album, embellishing her music with touches of pop and deepening her lyrical gifts beyond measure. Crain's new collection, A Small Death, arrives in the wake of personal and medical challenges that threatened her livelihood for a time. An extended recovery allowed her to rediscover the motivation for her art. After a trio of critically acclaimed projects with John Vanderslice at her side, she has taken the reins as producer for these intimate pieces.
Samantha Crain delivers eleven new songs from this side of the crucible, dreamlike tales of her ordeal. I've gotten over the shame in little bits, she sings on the collection's brief closing song, one that sounds like little else on A Small Death. Tik-tok beats are juxtaposed alongside pedal steel runs, catching the listener off guard at the tail end of a record characterized by thoughtfully deployed woodwinds and horns and near-jazz gestures. But it's the perfect bow to tie upon an album that is more likely to keep secrets than overstay its welcome. You can open up or keep it secret if you want / As if to spurn the weakness / As if to change the way it all went down ...
More typical of Crain's arrangements on her new CD is "Holding to the Edge of Night", a meandering meditation on walking in the dark. The lightly fingerpicked acoustic that introduces the song is gradually clouded over by atmospherics, a single clarinet flitting like a restless moth. Those woodwinds and horns leap to life halfway through "Constructive Eviction", highjacking the track until its close. These are the careful choices Crain makes on an album that is sturdy and warm, but deliberately constructed. Studio loops and effects are present, but like the horns they are used only when it's necessary to move the story forward: Trust is a heavy broken piano / You have to pay someone to take it off your hands.
Samantha Crain's debut EP introduced her as a risk-taking lyricist, a promising writer. As capable of storytelling as she is of introspection and vulnerable expression, she's grown to be a consistently impressive songwriter. "An Echo" is gorgeous: But then became the Summer when my hands appeared so useless I felt like a little baby / And my pride evaporated like the water in a skillet / And you softened like some butter. Few artists can so provocatively toe the line between confession and mystery. The detail in "Tough For You" is obviously rooted to some extent in Crain's own experience: I was planning to be changed the darkest day of the year, as we parked near the Christian thrift store / The smell of the downtown feed mill, the popcorn and the rain / I wanted to bow out, to hesitate some more / But I wanted to be tough for you.
Of course, Crain's immediately identifiable voice has served as her calling card since her first recordings. At times low with a defined vibrato, it can soar on songs like "Pastime". Hushed cuts like "High Horse" and "Joey" strip back the surroundings to allow her voice to shine: From the cracks in my textured walls / Weeps a loneliness that falls into the pit of my stomach. A record produced in the wake of such life-altering physical and emotional distress could've been indulgent or unnecessarily dramatic in less skilled hands.
But like Anna Tivel Samantha Crain can captivate with the most minimal arrangement. Like Phoebe Bridgers she can add bold and interesting brush-strokes with confidence and purpose. Just as impressively, she writes and sings "When We Remain" in the language of her Choctaw ancestors. A Small Death is born of a dark period, but Crain emerges from that wilderness a stronger and more original artist, deserving of wider listenership among indie folk circles and beyond.
- Waylon Payne, "All the Trouble" Blue Eyes, the Harlot, the Queer, the Pusher & Me (Carnival, Sep 11)
- SG Goodman, "Space and Time" Old Time Feeling (Verve, 20)
- Gillian Welch, "Strange Isabella" Boots No 2: Lost Songs Vol 1 (Acony, Jul 31) D
- Daniel Bachman, "Night Glows" Green Alum Springs (3 Lobed, 20) D
- Long Ryders, "Harriet Tubman's Gonna Carry Me Home" Two Fisted Tales (Island, 09)
- Buddy & Julie Miller, "Let It Rain (feat. McCrary Sisters & Steve Earle)" single (New West, 20) D
- Sons of Bill, "In Your Eyes (feat. Molly Parden)" single (Sons of Bill, 20) D
^ Samantha Crain, "High Horse" A Small Death (Ramseur, 20)
- Mendoza Line, "Jefferson" If They Knew This Was the End (Bar/None, 03)
- Buck Meek, "Roll Back Your Clocks" single (Keeled Scales, 20) D
- Blitzen Trapper, "Dead Billie Jean" Holy Smokes Future Jokes (Yep Roc, Sep 11)
- Bill Callahan, "35" Gold Record (Drag City, Sep 4)
- Ruston Kelly, "Pressure" Shape & Destroy (Rounder, Aug 28)
- T Hardy Morris, "Share the Needle" Audition Tapes (Dangerbird, 13)
- The Chicks, "Sleep at Night" Gaslighter (Columbia, 20)
- Rev Greg Spradlin & Band of Imperials, "I Drew Six" Hi-Watter (Out of the Past, 20)
- Mavericks, "Recuerdos" En Espanol (Mono Mundo, Aug 21)
- Buffalo Clover, "Truthfulness" Test Your Love (Buffalo Clover, 14)
- Texas Gentlemen, "Sing Me To Sleep" Floor It!!! (New West, 20)
- Ashley Ray, "Pauline" Pauline (Soundly, Aug 14) D
- Brent Cobb, "Keep 'Em On They Toes" Keep 'Em On They Toes (Ol' Buddy, Oct 2) D
- Ha Ha Tonka, "Cold Forgiver" Lessons (Bloodshot, 13)
- Kenny Roby, "Old Love" The Reservoir (Royal Potato Family, Aug 7)
- David Ramirez, "Shine On Me" My Love Is a Hurricane (Sweetworld, 20)
- Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, "Abandoned Love" All the Good Times (Acony, 20)
- Lori McKenna, "Balladeer" The Balladeer (CN, Jul 24)
- Daniel Donato, "Justice" Young Man's Country (Cosmic Country, Aug 7)
- Zephaniah Ohora, "Black & Blue" Listening To the Music (Last Roundup, Aug 28)
- Buddy & Julie Miller, "Get Offa My Money" single (New West, 20) D
- Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons, "Blowing My Brains Out" Into the Lovely (Cosmo Sex School, 05)
The longer we wait to publish each weekly Episode, the more there is to draw your attention to on our Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster page. Just yesterday, one of our defining artists of the past decade announced her first new collection in almost five years. We'll share the first single from Lydia Loveless' Daughter on our next ROUTES-cast. Expect the record on September 25 on her own label, Honey You're Gonna Be Late. From off the release of an assemblage of cover songs with David Rawlings, Gillian Welch will be dropping a generous collection of outtakes on July 31 via her own Acony Records. Boots No 2: the Lost Songs Vol 1 is the unwieldy title for the project. The Secretly Canadian label has announced an LP of covers from Whitney. Candid lands on shelves by August 28, and features tunes originally recorded by John Denver, Roches, David Byrne and more. Most recently part of Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls, Bethany Thomas is Bloodshot Records' most recent signing. BT/She/Her is scheduled for an August 28 street date. Finally, set a timer for October 2, when we're expected to get our hands on Brent Cobb's next full-length. Keep 'Em On They Toes will reach us, courtesy of Ol' Buddy Records. ROUTES-cast ahoy:
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