ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 29, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
I raised my hood against the blowing snow before dawn, as my running shoes crunched into three or four inches of fresh powder. It had arrived about ten days later than Denver's typical first snowfall, ushered in by a blast of arctic wind even before the last leaves had fallen. It's a time of year that rewards introversion and reflection, the perfect mindset for year-end wrap-ups. This marks the year's final monthly accounting, as we'll be laying out our 2023 favorites throughout December:
Year in Americana - Dec 3
Favorite Songs - Dec 10
Christmas Christmas - Dec 17
Favorite Albums - Dec 24
Covers - Dec 31
I don't wear headphones during my early morning runs, though I'm frequently thinking about music. My soundtrack is my own breathing, and the steady rhythm of my feet on pavement (or snow, as the case may be). During my less ambitious moments, however, in the car or at my desk, music is my constant companion, especially our weekly Spotify ROUTES-casts. Following are the tunes that have provided my company as Fall-ish becomes kinda-Winter.
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT OCTOBER?!!
1. Jeffrey Martin, "Red Station Wagon" Thank God We Left the Garden (Fluff & Gravy, Nov 3)
2. Mali Velasquez, "Medicine" I'm Green (Acrophase, Oct 13)
3. Chris Stapleton, "It Takes a Woman" Higher (Mercury, Nov 10)
4. Roadside Graves, "We're Not Here" I Won't Cry Alone (Don Giovanni, Nov 10)
5. Andrew Bryant, "Gravy" Prodigal (Sentimental Noises, Nov 3)
6. Damien Jurado, "St Gregory Hotel" Motorcycle Madness (Maraqopa, Oct 20)
7. Cory Hanson, "Western Cum" single (Drag City, Oct 27)
8. Uncle Lucius, "Civilized Anxiety" Like It's the Last One Left (Boo Clap, Dec 8)
9. Molly Parden, "Dandy Blend" Sacramented (Parden, Oct 13)
10. Pert Near Sandstone, "Clouds Are Gathering" Waiting Days (PNS, Oct 20)
No dedicated write-ups on these this month. Instead, we'll provide a review for one of the year's most striking records.
At one point in Present Tense: Andrew Bryant and the Making of Prodigal, midway through picking apart an acoustic track from his new record, the songwriter asks, Am I a perfectionist? The hour long doc, produced by Gerard Matthews of 19Ninety Films, addresses Bryant's question by portraying him in studio, surrounded by a spectacular band with whom he creates the album of his career. While Prodigal (Sentimental Noises, Nov 3) stands on its own merit, the video provides a remarkable account of the inspiration, collaboration, and the emotional investment that can result in such an artistic triumph.
Andrew Bryant wasn't in need of salvation or career redirection. Since his days with the seminal Water Liars, his solo output has been exceptional, from 2015's This Is the Life through 2017's terrific Ain't It Like the Cosmos, 2020's Sentimental Noises and '21s Meaningful Connection. While he is by no means above collaboration, each record is largely the product of Bryant as an instrumentalist and a producer. Bruce Watson, who serves as producer for Prodigal, mentions in the doc that Bryant delivered his new songs as home recordings, intended as a close-to-final product. At his Delta-Sonic Sound Studios in Memphis, the producer heard more, and gathered his collaborators to flesh out the sessions with Bryant: The way I produce is I try to surround myself with the best possible musicians at my disposal, and then I just kinda give them enough rope not to hang themselves but to actually do something very good.
The strength and vision of this outfit can be heard on "Gravy", from Will Sexton's fierce fuzz guitar to Rick Steff's essential piano, Alex Greene's organ, Mark Edgar Stuart's bass and Will McCarley's empathetic drumming. Add the punch of Memphis horns and Andrew Bryant's expressive delivery, his visionary lyrics: That night in the dark / I watch my mother take out the dove's heart / And cover it with gravy / In a skillet alone at the stove. Prodigal is a document of place and belonging, following Bryant down the roads of his rural Mississippi birthplace, the wide-open vistas of which define the accompanying film. In one especially poignant scene, the songwriter enters the open doors of an abandoned, dilapidated Baptist church. Beneath sagging ceilings and alongside a dusty, broken piano, he sings "Shiloh". Languid guitars peal across the track above McCarley's steady drumming, finally grounding and erupting in an incandescent solo. Bryant offers a vision from his childhood: I smell the coffee and the Christmas tree / Big star is falling somewhere over Galilee / I wrap my body in her softest quilt / Touch my hair and hide my face.
These moments of sharp sensory recollect crowd Andrew Bryant's new songs, surfacing like dreams that can seem mythical. He watches on "Trampoline" as an unnamed companion takes flight, the propulsive track set aloft on soaring strings: Then I saw Christ hanging out in the garden / Picking ripe tomatoes / He took my hand in his hand and let me into the house / He made me a sandwich and asked if I was thirsty. He watches a man with admiration, probably his father, on "Certainty", a song that swells with melancholy: I know you know a thing or two / About how everything works / And I wish I had / How I wish I had / Your certainty. In Present Tense, he remarks on the presence of the past on Prodigal, how his songs have tended to dwell on the here and now: Throughout making this record I learned that the past is still with me ... because all of those things are who I am.
The Prodigal sessions are rich with the language of the church, a recurring entity in Bryant's childhood with which he seeks to make some kind of peace. Reportedly written from his mother's perspective, "Tongues" features punching horns and pulsing bass, gathering urgency as it progresses: Everybody lives and everybody dies / No matter what we say / No matter how we pray. The title cut adds banjo to a pastoral setting: Brother Danny was a fisher of men / He cast his jigs across the Arkansas sands / Hooked a line on his finger and he played in the band / Every Sunday and we said amen. Solemn, acoustic folk songs such as "Wind" and "Love" provide almost hymnlike moments of clarity, though Bryant has no answers, and offers no resolution. He seems to encounter some fleeting grace at the intersection of reckoning and rapture, assembling pieces of family, place, and inheritance. Am I a son of this place, or am I not, he asks. In mythology, meaning must not only coexist alongside mystery, they are dependent upon one another.
Andrew Bryant's apparent decision to loosen his grasp on the birth of Prodigal has vested the collection with life heretofore unheard in his earlier catalogue. It is a phenomenal sounding record, with special praise due Sexton, Steff and McCarley. The relative freedom that he achieves by sharing his process of creation with Bruce Wagner and his once-in-a-lifetime band has given Bryant room to expand into his still very personal muse, making this new album the most natural, dare we say the most freewheeling of his career.
- Adam Remnant, "Sunrise At the Sunset Motel" single (Coiled Myth, 23) D
- Willy Tea Taylor & Fellership, "The Nurse (ft Anna Tivel)" Great Western Hangover (Blackwing, 23)
- Martha Scanlon & Jon Neufeld, "XO" single (Jealous Butcher, 23) D
- John Craigie, "Where It's From (ft TK & the Holy Know-Nothings)" single (Craigie, 23) D
- Maybel, "Splinters" Gloam (Idee Fixe, 23)
- Night Beds, "Knoxville" single (Arkansas Blues, 23) D
- Sun June, "Moon Ahead" Bad Dream Jaguar (Run For Cover, 23)
- Austin Lucas, "Just a Girl" single (GrindEthos, 23) D
- Israel Nash, "Going Back" Ozarker (Desert Folklore, 23)
- Cory Hanson, "Can't Keep My Eyes Open" single (Drag City, 23)
- Old Heavy Hands, "All the Time In the World" Small Fires (Spitting Daggers, Jan 19)
- Harvest Thieves, "Avenue A" As the Sparks Fly Upward (Harvest Thieves, 23)
- Flatland Cavalry, "New American Dream" Wandering Star (Interscope, 23)
- Joshua Ray Walker, "Outlaw (live)" I Opened For the Killers and All I Got Was Appendicitis EP (JRW, 23) D
- Cale Tyson, "Hope You're Hungover" single (Tyson, 23) D
- Jon Snodgrass, "Go" Let the Bad Times Roll: Tribute to the Replacements (Creep, 23) D
- New Pornographers, "Firework In the Falling Snow (acoustic version ft Aimee Mann)" single (Merge, 23) D
- Cat Power, "Like a Rolling Stone" Sings Dylan: 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (Domino, Nov 10)
- Grandaddy, "Watercooler" Blu Wav (Dangerbird, Feb 16) D
- Angie McMahon, "Divine Fault Line" Light Dark Light Again (Gracie, 23)
- Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, "Junk Drawer Heart" Dancing On the Edge (Sophomore Lounge, 23) D
- Third Mind, "Little Bit of Rain" Third Mind 2 (Yep Roc, 23)
- Old Californio, "Old Kings Road" Metaterranea (Old Californio, 23)
- Adeem the Artist, "Fast Cars" single (Four Quarters, 23) D
- Dori Freeman, "Movie Screen" Do You Recall (Blue Hens, Nov 17)
- Duff Thompson, "Bring It To You" Shadow People (Mashed Potato, 23)
- Nora Jane Struthers, "Oh To Be Home" Back To Cast Iron (Blue Pig, 23)
- Dead South, "Tiny Wooden Box" Chains & Stakes (Six Shooter, Feb 9) D
- Shakey Graves, "True Love Will Find You In the End (ft Jess Williamson)" Texas Wild (Lower Colorado Record Authority, 23)
- Josiah and the Bonnevilles, "Kentucky Flood" Endurance (Josiah, 23) D
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To enjoy our weekly Spotify ROUTES-cast, just open Spotify and search for "routesandbranches" to access this most recent playlist, as well as many others from past months. Or click here for a preview:
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