LiBBY DeCAMP - WESTWARD and FASTER

ROUTES & BRANCHES

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

June 5, 2021

Scott Foley, purveyor of something else

The music world is reopening, pushing out against the fortresses of the pandemic. Sure is a lot of new music out there. Every week at R&B HQ we collect, collate and cull through a great number of new albums and singles, searching for that stuff that rises to the top. This year, our choices are increasingly focused on the value added, the singles and songs that add a degree of something else to their americana, alt.country and roots music. Sure, we want to feature some of the more pure americana stuff, but there is no factor of surprise in a new Flatlanders cover project, there is nothing new in another Rodney Crowell collection. 

By definition, roots music grows out of tradition. Whether it's country, folk, bluegrass or other, roots music lends itself more readily to hybridization than some other genres. Libby DeCamp's debut full-length, Westward and Faster, doesn't shed those roots. As early recordings and online video evidence demonstrates, the multi-instrumentalist is well-schooled in the traditions, even as she finds logical ways to extend these in more contemporary directions. DeCamp's original songs are as much Tom Waits as they are Rhiannon Giddens. You'll hear Pokey LaFarge as much as you hear Neko Case. 

That Waits effect might be heard on DeCamp's "Conductor". The guitar is heavier than you might expect, backed by junkyard percussion and shrouded in a cloud of dark suspicion. On "Asked For Water", a full band expands on this dark folk vision: Coca-Cola stains on bedsheets / Bedside / Goddamn / How alive am I? Mixed and produced with Adam Bradley Schreiber, the sessions for Westword and Faster are direct and unadorned, contributing to the edginess of their impact. 

Instrumentation is electric as often as it's acoustic, with DeCamp on both guitar and banjo. A diatribe against the factory farm, "On the Range" opens with that banjo before adding pedal steel and percussion: None bear a name nor hold any claim / To a life stripped of all wonder. One of the session's most melodic tracks, it juxtaposes beauty and spoil sonically and thematically. "Look On" floats atop a lazy pedal steel, with an almost psychedelic spirit that pervades DeCamp's evocative but impressionistic lyrics: So here's to bushels, cords and bales / And landscapes hung in rooms / German shepherd / Goldenrod / And the strawberry moon. 

While lyrics can be evasive, DeCamp is not a lazy writer. As accompanying publicity notes: DeCamp's writing and sound carries an unflinching intention to reflect the times. "Tell Me About Yourself" shines a light on the politics of identity: What you are / Is what everybody else / Will have to learn how to get used to. Electric guitar is paired with banjo, with that junkyard percussion and a sloppy trombone for good measure. With its air of prophetic dread, "Breadbasket Blues" alludes to our culture's fixation on social media. The grit of a bluesy electric guitar is joined by little more than the rattle and bang of a drum kit: All that I'm asking is to untie / The cables from the tables / To the ladder in the manmade sky. 

Libby DeCamp's sound has evolved since those earliest online documents, following a fascination with Dylan and Seeger into more personally expressive directions. Westward and Faster offers a snapshot of an artist in time, with an original lyrical bent and an evident fearlessness to color outside the lines. DeCamp's debut full-length is a promissory note that's well worth watching, especially if she continues to trust her stylistic boldness, to split the difference between Gillian Welch's plainspoken folk and Neko Case's wild departures in pursuit of the muse. 

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Summer has come this weekend to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, and with it a strong slate of future releases. Blues and gospel artist Paul Thorn has announced an August 6 date for his next collection. Never Too Late To Call is the guitarist and songwriter's follow-up to 2018's Don't Let the Devil Ride (Perpetual Obscurity). Guitarist Nathan Salsburg turns to the Psalms for inspiration for his next project. Due August 20 via the No Quarter label, Psalms finds him creating new settings for the Biblical poetry, joined by artists such as Joan Shelley, James Elkington, Spooner Oldham and more. Sierra Ferrell's first record for Rounder arrives with a buzz of anticipation. The aptly titled Long Time Coming will finally land on August 20. Formerly half of HoneyHoney, Suzanne Santo's second solo CD is set for an August 27 shelf date. Courtesy of Soundly Music, Yard Sale was written coming off a tour as part of Hozier's band. Finally, we published a piece in appreciation of Scott Hirsch's 2018 Lost Time Behind the Moon. The former contributor to Hiss Golden Messenger has set October 8 for the follow-up, Windless Day (Echo Magic).