featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
June 4, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Americana artists don't like to be called americana. Some hate it. Many bands dislike the term alt.country as well. This raises the problem of what to call our kind of music, when Lucinda Williams says she just plays rock 'n roll. Not surprisingly, we've invented several other unsatisfactory classifications so we can avoid the A word. Is a particular act countrypolitan? Perhaps they're indie-folk. I don't know that you'd be able to find one instance in this nearly twenty year-old blog where I deployed the term cosmic country to describe an artist.
Many reviewers have called RF Shannon's music cosmic country. Four records ago, frontman Shane Renfro tried desert blues. During RF Shannon's earlier days, Renfro and company delivered their music beneath a layer of haze - lengthy, shambling numbers that brought to mind dry heat and weed. On 2018's Trickster Blues and 2019's Rain On Dust, running times were abbreviated. Renfro continued to sing through burlap, but song structures took shape, and his cadre of collaborators (including brother Jeff on drums) began to lean into a more targeted musical identity. While still wide-ranging, the sounds of RF Shannon incorporated shades of rock, soul, Texas country and blues, with a residual whiff of psychedelia. Shane Renfro's songs became increasingly rooted in place. Even as he drifted to Los Angeles and back, the landscape and the flora and the vibe that came to define his music was that of Lockhart, Texas.
RF Shannon's new project, Red Swan In Palmetto (Keeled Scales), speaks to this radical sense of place, our rootedness in the natural world. Meet me by the creek in palmetto, Renfro sings above percussion that ticks and rattles like a copse of cicadas on "Palmetto". On the patient soul of "Cedar Perfume": I'm leaving LA / I'm on my way / I'm the bloom of an iris / Crying for rain. He is not a storytelling writer, but chooses words and sounds in order to suggest a setting. Red Swan presents Renfro as an evocative poet, hinting at secrets and peering from shadows.
The sound of Renfro's band serves a key role in suggesting this Texas setting, especially in Luke Dawson's pedal steel and Rebecca Patek's fiddle. There is a primordial swampiness to "Abalone", a snaking baseline and strings leading a desert dance: A cigarette hangs low from her lips / She can make it last forever. The tune unfolds with fluttering flute and the grind of an electric guitar. A sickle in the western sky holds court over "Heathen Nights". Adding Kitty Beebe's sighing backing vocal and the rare clarinet, the song is loose and languid, but demonstrates a purposefulness and confidence, a direction that carries throughout Red Swan: My mind / Is stray like a roan on a muddy bank.
A humid reverb still hangs in the air for these sessions, but the overall sound is a cleaner and more spacious version of RF Shannon. Even with its programmed pulse, "Dublin, Texas" might be the record's most country moment. Renfro's voice is as clear and forward in the mix as it's ever been. The terrific "Raindance #11" drips with soulful electric guitar, and a definite lo-fi cool, the singer's delivery recalling MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger. "Midnight Jewelry" stands as the album's strongest moment, with a buoyant chorus: I felt a rusted band of gold / Like a tourniquet wrapped around my soul. The bold and melodic track is RF Shannon's step into the light.
Let's agree to add bootgaze and post-americana to our collective lexicon of descriptors. Those might work as well as any other to describe RF Shannon's satisfying strain of roots. What began as the band's restless flirtation has solidified into a more deliberate statement of musical purpose. Their new collection succeeds in its directness without abandoning any of their original mystery. Red Swan In Palmetto is a post-americana treasure. This halo ain't cheap, Renfro confides intimately, But the wings came free.
- Robert Lloyd & Janet Beveridge-Bean, "Take a Giant Step" Black Cat Dark Horse (Tiny Global, 23) D
- William Matheny, "Grand Old Feeling" That Grand Old Feeling (Hickman Holler, Aug 4) D
- Hayden Pedigo, "Happiest Times I Ever Ignored" Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (Mexican Summer, Jun 30)
- Handsome Family, "Joseph" Hollow (Milk & Scissors, Sep 8) D
- Anna St Louis, "Morning" In the Air (Woodsist, Jun 9)
- Sam Blasucci, "Around the Corner" Off My Stars (Innovative Leisure, 23)
- Lilly Hiatt, "Mustard" single (Hiatt, 23) D
- Devil Makes Three, "Puppets" single (Kahn, 23) D
- Jason Isbell & 400 Unit, "Save the World" Weathervanes (Southeastern, Jun 9)
- Lindsay Lou, "Queen of Time" Queen of Time (Kill Rock Stars, Sep 29) D
- Colter Wall, "Corralling the Blues" Little Songs (La Honda, Jul 14)
- Ashley McBryde, "Learned to Lie" Devil I Know (Warner, Sep 8) D
- Joshua Ray Walker, "Cuz I Love You" What Is It Even (JRW, Aug 4) D
- Erin Enderlin, "Livin' For Today" Barroom Mirrors (Black Crow, 23) D
- Philip Bowen, "Old Kanawha (ft Charles Wesley Godwin)" Old Kanawha (Bowen, Aug 18) D
- Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, "Next Rodeo" City of Gold (Nonesuch, Jul 21)
- Austin Lucas, "We Did It All For Don" Reinventing Against Me! (GrindEthos, 23)
- Tallest Man on Earth, "Say What You Will" Spotify Singles (Anti, 23) D
^ RF Shannon, "Raindance #11" Red Swan in Palmetto (Keeled Scales, 23)
- Baseball Project, "Grand Salami Time" Grand Salami Time! (Omnivore, Jun 30)
- Boy Golden, "Mountain Road" For Jimmy EP (Six Shooter, Jul 21) D
- Timmy Stinson, "That's It" Wronger (Cowboys in the Campfire, 23)
- Natural Child, "Little Magic" Be M'Guest (Natural Child, Jun 29) D
- Becca Mancari, "Over and Over (ft Julien Baker)" Left Hand (Captured Tracks, Aug 25) D
- Cut Worms, "Ballad of the Texas King" Cut Worms (Jagjaguwar, Jul 21) D
- Margaret Glaspy, "Act Natural" Echo the Diamond (ATO, Aug 18) D
- James & the Giants, "I Want To Go Down To the Basement" James & the Giants (Kill Rock Stars, Jun 30)
- DeYarmond Edison, "As Long As I Can Go" Epoch (Jagjaguwar, Aug 18) D
- Hiss Golden Messenger, "Nu-Grape" Jump For Joy (Merge, Aug 25) D
- Nathaniel Rateliff & Night Sweats, "Slow Pace of Time (ft Charlie Gabriel)" What If I EP (Stax, 23)
Seems like every day we're receiving news of impactful releases to add to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster. Each week we share just five (5) of the most promising selections. Since our last post, we were pleased and puzzled to hear of Joshua Ray Walker's plan to release a record of covers from divas like Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Lizzo and more. Bearing the terrific title of What Is It Even, the collection will come out August 4. Big Thief's Buck Meek shares news of his third solo outing. Haunted Mountain features four cowrites with Jolie Holland, appearing wherever music matters on August 25 (4AD). That very same day we'll have access to a new project from Hiss Golden Messenger. MC Taylor describes Jump For Joy as a concept album sorts (Merge). Our six-year Handsome Family drought is about to end. Hollow, the duo's eleventh record, will reach shelves on September 8 (Milk & Scissors). Finally, Will Johnson continues his run of reliably superb solo records. The Keeled Scales label has set September 15 as the release date for No Ordinary Crown.
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