ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
July 2, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Hello July. With every week, we're still adding album after album to our rambling recounting of releases we call A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster. It's been more than a couple minutes since we last shared some of the most promising records, so let's mention just five (5). There was a time when Ryan Bingham was better known as a music artist than as a recurring character on Yellowstone. He'll return to the studio with the release of Watch Out For the Wolf (August 11). Allison Russell's Outside Child was our favorite album for 2021. We've saved a space for her follow-up, The Returner (Fantasy, Sep 8). And speaking of favorites, we called Lydia Loveless' Indestructible Machine our favorite LP of the 2010s. She'll be returning September 22, and returning to the Bloodshot label, with Nothing's Gonna Stand In My Way Again. Let's also mention here John R Miller's follow-up to 2021's excellent Depreciated. That'll be Heat Comes Down, via Rounder on October 6. Finally, we want to make sure we've got a sprawling tribute to the music of Kevn Kinney on your radar. Eventually totaling 100 songs (!), Let's Go Dancing: a Celebration of the Oeuvre of Kevn Kinney will be released in four seasonal installments, via the Tasty Goody label. You can find out more about that remarkable undertaking here.
Free of further context, the eleven songs on Tommy Prine's debut sound like the intro to a capable new songwriter. This Far South is a stylistically diverse selection of roots and rock, Prine singing like a young Jason Molina or Justin Townes Earle, guitar and drums occasionally crowding the arrangements. As you might expect from a twenty-something songwriter, lyrics address the missteps of youth, a pervasive mining for meaning and identity, and finding traction following the death of his own father. It's as good a debut as we've heard in 2023. I'd hazard a guess that Tommy Prine may have a promising future in our kind of music.
There. Now I've proceeded further into my review of This Far South than any other blogger, without calling attention to the room's elephant, the fact that Tommy Prine's late father was the beloved crown prince of americana, John Prine. Prine, the younger's origin story posits that he would follow his father on tour to staff the merch table, playing guitar and writing songs now and then but never considering himself an heir to his legacy. At a 2019 Dominican Republic festival, Tommy's wife volunteered him to fill in for an absent act, likely the first time he'd presented his own songs before such an audience.
Of course, John Prine's 2020 passing from Covid hit him hard, emotions from which Tommy felt more comfortable processing through song rather than in conversation. Recognizing his talent and his need for an outlet, friends Ruston Kelly and Gena Johnson (a Nashville engineer who has worked with Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton and on John Prine's Tree of Forgiveness) strong armed him into setting some of these songs to tape, and both joined him as coproducers for the resulting collection, This Far South.
John Prine is all over his son's debut. Daddy won't you come outside, he sings on "Boyhood", I feel lost today. To his great credit, however, Tommy Prine's work sounds very little like that of his father, neither lyrically nor sonically. Perhaps he comes closest on the rare rave-up "Mirror and the Kitchen Sink", a strummy acoustic number that demonstrates the singalong spirit of punk a'la Frank Turner. Good natured studio patter is heard throughout the song: So what's the difference between you and me / I'll tell you right now it's a couple teeth. But rather than echo his father's outlook on the big ol' goofy world, Tommy Prine is more likely to think and to feel more deeply. On "Elohim", he shares his status as a disbeliever in the popular notion of god: I hate this part of me / But I don't believe in what I can't see. Sadler Vaden's electric guitars soar above pounding drums, with the singer's low-cast vocal processed just a touch. Heck, this isn't even a folk or country number.
Tim Kelly's pedal steel does appear on "By the Way", along with Jarrad K's lilting piano. The song bears the questioning, downcast tone that typifies most of This Far South, another way in which Prine charts his own musical course. Can I breathe all of me into a bottle / And throw it in the sea, he sings on the memorable chorus. The songwriter isn't a cynic, he's simply sharing the doubt and the uncertainty that pervade a young adult's mind, especially when challenged with the passing of friends and family. I can't find any answers / I can't trust any thoughts, he mentions on "Some Things" (one of the couple tunes he's cowritten with Ruston Kelly). An electric drone pings between headphones on the cosmically expansive cut. The acoustic title track finds Prine calling from the rock-bottom depths: I've chosen the habit that I'm dropping / Coming down's exhausting / I think I need some help. Kelly and Johnson have created a fuller setting for most songs, arrangements that complement Prine's more restrained vocal delivery.
There's a confessional element to many songs on This Far South, whether Tommy Prine is speaking to his stage anxiety, mourning his friend's tragic overdose, or singing of his own childhood. There's an anthemic quality to "Reach the Sun", with the singer encouraging his voice into more expressive territory: God I miss those days, set the world ablaze with you / With eyes for only the brighter things. He references his father on "Letter To My Brother", a hushed acoustic song dealing with his friend's addiction: So how was your night with Sam Stone? The cut beautifully demonstrates Prine's range of feeling, his voice cracking: How many times have you died / One too many fucking times / I'm tired, I'm so tired ...
Tommy Prine was introduced to the larger listening audience with a pair of very well-received acoustic singles, 2022's "Ships In the Harbor" and "Turning Stones". Actually written following the completion of his first full-length, the songs are almost exquisite. Elsewhere, Prine has admitted that he has enough new stuff for at least one or two records. A debt of gratitude is owed to Ruston Kelly and Gena Johnson (and to his wife Savannah) for encouraging him to take himself seriously as a songwriter. About This Far South, Prine has commented that he regards himself not so much in the shadow of his father as walking alongside it. The electric folk of "Cash Carter Hill" notes You've found your own trail as the arrangement flourishes into a full electric storm sparked by Vaden's guitar. It's a moment that serves as a coming out, setting the stage for Tommy Prine's next act, maybe closing some of the doors that were left open during his early twenties. I'm not good at growing up, he sings on "Crashing Again". Having established himself as his own artist with This Far South, it's tempting to think that he's put some of that doubt to rest.
ROUTES-cast JULY 2, 2023
- Steel Woods, "If Not For the Rain" On Your Time (Woods, Oct 6) D
- Colter Wall, "For a Long While" Little Songs (La Honda, Jul 14)
- Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, "San Joaquin" City of Gold (Nonesuch, Jul 21)
- Dale Watson, "Starvation Box" Starvation Box (Cleopatra, Jul 7) D
- Flatland Cavalry, "Last American Summer" single (Flatland, 23) D
- Margo Cilker, "Keep It On a Burner" Valley of Heart's Delight (Fluff & Gravy, Sep 15)
- Pink Stones, "No Rain No Flowers" You Know Who (Normaltown, 23)
- Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, "Sticks and Stones" Sticks and Stones (Ace, Jul 14)
- Nathan Mongol Wells, "In Years" From a Dark Corner (State Fair, Aug 18)
- Buddy & Julie Miller, "In the Throes" In the Throes (New West, Sep 22) D
- Lori McKenna, "Happy Children" 1988 (CN, Jul 21)
- Teddy Thompson, "Picture of Me Without You" My Love of Country (Chalky Sounds, Aug 18) D
- Viv & Riley, "Kygers Hill" Imaginary People (Free Dirt, Sep 15) D
- Garrison Starr, "Fireworks (ft Milk Carton Kids)" single (Far Cry, 23) D
- Mapache, "Ghosts" Swinging Stars (Innovative Leisure, Aug 18)
- Mipso, "Carolina Rolling By" Book of Fools (Mipso, Aug 18) D
- Lucinda Williams, "Rock n Roll Heart" Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart (Hwy 20, 23)
- Americans, "When You Get Back" Strays EP (Incandescent, Jul 21)
- Briscoe, "The Well" West Of It All (ATO, Sep 15) D
- Elizabeth Moen, "Nobody Wants a Lonely Heart" For Arthur EP (Moen, Jul 18)
- Cut Worms, "Don't Fade Out" Cut Worms (Jagjaguwar, Jul 21)
- Becca Mancari, "Don't Even Worry (ft Brittany Howard)" Left Hand (Captured Tracks, Aug 25)
- Minus 5, "Let's Build a Pyramid" Calling Cortez (Yep Roc, 23) D
- Natural Child, "Swanee" Be M'Guest (Natural Child, 23)
- James & the Giants, "Don't Let Love Make a Liar Out of You" James & the Giants (Kill Rock Stars, 23)
- Buck Meek, "Paradise" Haunted Mountain (4AD, Aug 25)
- Mightmare, "Can't Get What I Want" single (Kill Rock Stars, 23) D
- Woods, "Between the Past" Perennial (Woodsist, Sep 15)
- Kieran Hebden, "Darkness Darkness (ft William Tyler)" single (Psychic Hotline, 23) D
- Ratboys, "The Window" The Window (Topshelf, Aug 25)
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