ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
February 21, 2021
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
I published the following in praise of David Huckfelt's 2019 solo debut, Stranger Angels: Stranger Angels is rich with poetry, a collection that's haunted by the world in a manner that's remote yet completely immersed in the everyday. Human and animal and mechanical voices interrupt and compliment Huckfelt's work, making the world another instrument and a catalyst in the world falling apart and possibly coming back together ... Huckfelt has called his new work a soundtrack to the thin place between worlds. The frontier between here and there is crossed and criss-crossed throughout the record.
A onetime member of The Pines, David Huckfelt returns today with Room Enough Time Enough (Fluff & Gravy). Though he's called Minnesota his homebase over the years, his new collection is a product of the Southwest. Specifically, Room Enough is a collaboration with, and a tribute to Native American art and spirit. The sessions, a weaving of traditional and contemporary song, continue to dwell along that thin place, that frontier between now and then.
Rather than borrowing or appropriating Indigenous art, Huckfelt is surrounded by Native artists who contribute to the record's artistic vision. Ojibwe songwriter Keith Secola is a presence throughout the collection, especially on cuts such as "Book of Life". The ballad raises the perennial existential questions that trouble us across cultures: What is the meaning / How do we live by / Who would you die for / What do you cry for? Secola provides acoustic guitar backing as Warm Springs Nation singer Quiltman adds his haunting call. Secola recites his own piece, "Calling Thunderbird Blues" unleashing its furious blues in a cloud of harmonica, chant and drum that builds and overlaps, spiraling skyward: Everyone in here is alright ... Your ancestors were assholes.
Huckfelt stirs the fire on Room Enough by adding aspects of folk tradition to the proceedings. His take on the cowboy lament "Bury Me Not" is terrifically interrupted by an electric guitar burst. The elusive Greg Brown shares a duet with him on "Satisfied Mind", his voice like a low fog. The record brings contributions from members of Tucson's Calexico, whose pedal steel and horns are a great Southwest touch to the familiar tune. The spirit of Tucson makes its presence known throughout the sessions in contributions from Howe Gelb and Billy Sedlmayr, founding members of the outfit that would evolve into Giant Sand. A man who merits his own memoir, Sedlmayr joins Huckfelt on a run through Cole Younger, his voice a cracked but still valuable treasure.
When he departs from trad territory to present his original work, Huckfelt carries the thread of tradition to assure a consistent vibe. There is a prophetic tone to the country-flavored "Hidden Made Known", featuring a lovely fiddle accompaniment: The god of all things great and small is screaming / You got one last chance. "Gambler's Dharma" and "Imaginesse" follow suit, the latter adding the beautiful voice of Pieta Brown for one of the record's strongest moments. Huckfelt created this monument in the wake of the arrival of his first child, an episode that can't help but change the world for us. Atop an indelible organ line, he sings on the Dylan-esque title track: All the harshness of this land of bones / All the madness that we can't control / One beating heart at the still point of the world.
David Huckfelt's music is both solid and porous on Room Enough Time Enough. It's grounded in musicianship and songcraft, even as it invites the indwelling of spirits, voices across time, space, culture. While roots music is largely perpetrated on the notion of cultural appropriation at some level, these songs don't find Huckfelt bringing thrift store dream catchers and costume jewelry into the studio. Instead, he approaches the dialog with humility, as a collaborator and a conduit for a message and a sound that have been shut out of folk music. Room Enough opens itself without judgment to the spirit and the politics of a story and a sound that are deeply, essentially American.
World without end amen amen ...
^ David Huckfelt, "Book of Life (feat. Quiltman)" Room Enough Time Enough (Fluff & Gravy, Feb 26)
- Beth Lee, "Pens & Needles" Waiting On You Tonight (Beth Lee, 21)
- Joe Kaplow, "February Prorated Rent" Sending Money and Stems (Kaplow, Apr 30) D
- Bill Mackay & Nathan Bowles, "I See God" Joyride (Drag City, Apr 9)
- Ana Egge, "Old Fashioned" My Old Man: Tribute to Steve Goodman (BMG, 04)
- Bowerbirds, "Moon Phase" becalmyounglovers (Psychic Hotline, Apr 30) D
- Sara Watkins, "Blue Shadows On the Trail" Pepper Tree (New West, Mar 26)
- Charley Crockett, "Lessons in Depression" single (Son of Davy, 21) D
- Robert Ellis, "Friends Like Those" Photographs (New West, 11)
- John Driskell Hopkins, "8 Tracks in Daddy's Cadillac" Lonesome High (Hopkins, 21)
- Janet Simpson, "I'm Wrong" Safe Distance (Cornelius Chapel, Mar 19)
- Spencer Burton, "Further" Coyote (Still, 21) D
- Reed Turchi, "Serpentine" Creosote Flats (Nine Mile, 21)
- Amythyst Kiah, "Black Myself" single (Rounder, 21) D
- Samantha Crain, "Bloomsday" I Guess We Live Here Now EP (Real Kind, Apr 9) D
- Hold Steady, "Family Farm" Open Door Policy (Positive Jams, 21)
- Silver Synthetic, "In the Beginning" Silver Synthetic (Third Man, Apr 9) D
- Dan Baird, "Younger Face" Buffalo Nickel (American, 96)
- Johanna Samuels, "Nature's Way" Excelsior! (Mama Bird, May 14) D
- Holly MacVe, "Daddy's Gone" Not the Girl (Modern Sky, Apr 16)
- John Paul Keith, "Ain't Done Loving You Yet" Rhythm of the City (Wild Honey, 21)
- Gourds, "I Want It So Bad" Old Mad Joy (Vanguard, 11)
- Jay Gonzalez, "Crying Through the Wall" Back To the Hive (Middlebrow, Mar 5)
- Ashley Monroe, "Drive" Rosegold (Mountainrose Sparrow, Apr 30) D
- Pink Stones, "Shiny Bone" Introducing ... the Pink Stones (Normaltown, Apr 9)
- Sadies, "Such a Little Word" Stories Often Told (Yep Roc, 02)
- Valerie June, "Why the Bright Stars Glow" Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers (Fantasy, Mar 12)
- Esther Rose, "Good Time" How Many Times (Father/Daughter, Mar 26)
- Lucky Peterson, "I'm New Here" You Can Always Turn Around (BMG, 10)
- Loretta Lynn, "One's On the Way (feat. Margo Price)" Still Woman Enough (Sony, Mar 19) D
Everyday there are new additions to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, our eminently browsable account of new and forthcoming records. Back in December, Southern Culture On the Skids released a sweet box set of 45s, primarily covers. On March 13, the trio will be sharing At Home With Southern Culture On the Skids, a new full length of originals set to tape in Rick Miller's living room during lockdown. The State Fair label is home to Jackson Scribner, a songwriter from Melissa, Texas whose self-titled full-length debut debuts on March 26. One-third of the Pistol Annies, Ashley Monroe returns with her new solo set on April 30. Rosegold rings some of the same bells as Kasey Musgraves' Golden Hour. What began as a series of unadorned demos has been fleshed out by producer Dan Auerbach, to be released on May 7. Smoke From the Chimney will be Tony Joe White's first posthumous release (Easy Eye Sound). Finally, set May 28 for the return of Blackberry Smoke. With a new band lineup, You Hear Georgia lands May 28 (3 Legged).
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