featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
September 25, 2021
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
This week we apparently had more bandwidth for a longer review. We'll continue to post these as were able, alternating with our new, shorter Traipsing Thru the Aisles segments.
Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic (Atlantic, Sept 17) Here is the album I've been hoping Adia Victoria would make since her 2016 debut, Beyond the Bloodhounds. The EPs and singles that followed, and then her excellent 2019 Silences found her slicing, dicing and reclaiming the blues and roots music. With the arrival of the incendiary "South Gotta Change" last Summer, in response to John Lewis' passing and George Floyd's murder, the table was set for Adia Victoria's third full-length project.
Alongside executive producer T Bone Burnett, and with perennial partner and multi-instrumentalist Mason Hickman, Adia Victoria has created a remarkable record. Where previous releases ranged further afield, these new songs sink deeper roots into the soil of the South, both musically and thematically. She writes: I wanted to include myself in the history of the South. I wanted to make this young Black girl's narrative just as emblematic of a Southern experience as Faulkner could write. On the opening "Magnolia Blues", the singer returns to her native Carolina. Under cover of slippery strings and acoustic strumming she immerses herself like a prodigal daughter returned from exile: I'm gonna plant myself / Under a magnolia / I'm gonna let that dirt / Do its work.
That spirit of reclamation simmers through A Southern Gothic, a tension somewhere between a threatening storm and a lover's return. "Far From Dixie" approaches on marching drums and a brewing guitar squall, with Adia Victoria admitting, I've got you in my bones / No matter where I roam. An acoustic blues with rattling percussion and dirty bass, "Mean-Hearted Woman" gives voice to a legacy of resentment and retribution: I got it in me to burst into flames / Let the whole world burn, let the ashes rain.
While Adia Victoria shares a quiet confidence with Gillian Welch, she expresses her musical restlessness with the sharp edge of Fiona Apple and the dark electric buzz of Otis Taylor. She collaborates with Kyshona Armstrong, Margo Price and Jason Isbell on "You Was Born to Die", with the guitar of the latter striking like lightning. "Please Come Down" sparkles with touches of synth, and highlights Adia Victoria's vocal originality. The collection closes with a revelatory duet with the National's Matt Berninger on "South For the Winter", an interesting juxtaposition with the CD's opener.
On A Southern Gothic, as on her terrific Call and Response podcast, Adia Victoria demonstrates her deep literacy in both the mythology and the troubling reality of the South. Her spirit-haunted record leaves us at the storied crossroads, the rumor of reckoning on the wind. The sessions herald the arrival of an important voice in our kind of music.
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As we step with gratitude into the Fall months, there's not a lot of higher profile adds to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster. We do strongly encourage you to make the page a regular visit, as we continue to add forthcoming records on a daily basis.
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