MiCHAEL NAU - ACCOMPANY

ROUTES & BRANCHES

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

January 7, 2024

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

The Suicide Squeeze label recently reissued Cotton Jones' 2008 River Strumming record, a true understated gem from Michael Nau and company. Alongside 09's Paranoid Cocoon and 2010's Tall Hours In the Glowstream, Nau began to cement his craft, constructing songs and snippets in the studio from threads of 60s pop, impressionistic folk and psych-soul. When he and his wife/bandmate Whitney McGraw started their family, Nau switched to recording under his own name, converting his band's patchwork artistry into an increasingly confident, singular expression. 

Accompany is Michael Nau's fifth full-length solo project, taking its place among earlier LPs, collaborations, singles and one-offs. Following a couple years afloat, Nau returned to the studio at the invitation of producer Adrian Olsen, bringing with him a cadre of friends, touring partners, and familiar conspirators. There has always been a real warmth to his music, but true to its title, Accompany bears a more collaborative, studio-born conversationalism. 

As a whole, the eleven songs on Accompany represent almost the full range of Nau's expression, even as the overall sessions might bend in more of a roots direction. From Twain, Mat Davidson's pedal steel cements that impression on highlights like the good-natured "Painting a Wall": It's an impossible life to get over. Davidson weaves a bright ribbon through the number, supported by an Augie Meyers-like carnival organ, perhaps as close as the record comes to an upbeat cut. Billowy arrangements lend "Sharp Diamonds" a particularly cosmic bearing, lifting the pedal steel into the clouds. The song also features one of the spare but welcome backing vocals from Whitney McGraw. 

Michael Nau isn't a prototypically showy singer, he's more likely to opt for a low-key, JJ Cale drawl on most numbers. Like Harry Nilsson (or Father John Misty), that doesn't prevent him from lending his pipes to more soulful causes. Nau's voice is mixed forward on much of Accompany, delivering the lovely "One Morning in Vibrato" from a stirring croon, ringed by pretty strings and a harplike keys: Look at all these footprints / Where did everybody / Where did everybody go. "Tiny Flakes" slips into a thick, bluesy pace, encouraging a rare duo vocal moment from Nau and Mcgraw, and allowing him to recline into the woozy strings and sly electronic burble: Where a breeze is tripping over / All I know / Plus all I don't / Lying peaceful at the center / Every piece is stacked together. 

If there is a unifying sonic theme to Michael Nau's oeuvre, it might be his practice of treating arrangement as an implement in his musical toolbox. Past recordings have presented a decidedly lo-fi sound, or have blurred Nau's voice to emphasize other aspects of the recording. Muted horns or stray sounds are wound into and through the songs. He has commented: I like to think that one giant song shattered, and I'm just trying to scoop up and arrange the pieces into something that feels good. Possibly as a result of the largely live-to-tape recording, songs like "Shiftshaping" seem more complete, more whole than they might have on early collections. Gathered around an unhurried piano progression, the piece displays a bit of Nau's psych-soul side, especially in his melismatic vocal. Steady electric strumming carries "Relearn To Boogie", a 60s orchestral pop cut with almost playful lyrics: They built a sea / Around a ship / We watched it grow / Drip by drip. Elsewhere: The trash swirls / And gathers in the wind / Looks like a celebration. See also, the bonus track "Last I Looked", a piano-pop and soul cut whose strings suggest a lushness only hinted at elsewhere. 

Like Lambchop or Tim Rutili's Califone, Michael Nau's Accompany succeeds as a rich mosaic of sound and production, drawing from a generous pool of influence without becoming a tribute or an oldies record. Like Max Clarke's Cut Worms, his originals sound as relevant to today's milieu as they might on 60s or 70s AM radio. With producer Olsen's support, and with the services of Mat Davidson, Will Brown, Seth Kauffman and others at his call, Nau simply relaxes into his signature mix, at home however you want to name his sound. His first album on the Karma Chief label was released when most writers were turning their attention to wrapping up the year. It would be a mistake to lose Accompany in the shuffle. 

We'll take advantage of the New Year's reset to make sure all are acquainted with A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, our obsessively curated new release calendar. With just a click, you'll be equipped with the knowledge of the gods, in addition to a sprawling account of 2023's goings-on for the first few months of the year. Were we to be put on the spot, we might include the following as among our most eagerly anticipated releases for the next several weeks: Doug Paisley, Sad Old World (Paisley, Jan 19), Frontier Ruckus, On the Northline (Loose, Feb 16), Tucker Riggleman & the Cheap Dates, Restless Spirit (WarHen, Feb 17), Hurray For the Riff Raff, Past Is Still Alive (Nonesuch, Feb 23), Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, Revelations (Abeyance, Mar 29), Sophie Gault, Baltic Street Hotel (Petaluma, Apr 12). Your results may vary. 

Finally, after a handful of weeks looking at the years passed, let's launch with gusto into thirty brand new tracks released since our last all-new Spotify ROUTES-cast: 

- Hermanos Gutierrez, "Blood Milk Moon" single  (Easy Eye, 23)  D

- David Nance & Mowed Sound, "Mock the Hours" David Nance & Mowed Sound  (Third Man, Feb 9)  D

^ Michael Nau, "Painting a Wall" Accompany  (Karma Chief, 23)

- Valerie June, "Ordinary World" single  (Fantasy, 23)  D

- John Craigie, "Good To You (ft TK & Holy Know-Nothings)" Pagan Church  (Zabriskie Point, Jan 12)

- Tucker Riggleman & Cheap Dates, "Restless Spirit" Restless Spirit  (WarHen, Feb 17)

- Hallelujah the Hills, "Alone in Love" single  (Discrete Pageantry, 23)  D

- Esther Rose, "Safe to Run (ft Deslondes)" Safe 2 Run (Versions) EP  (New West, Jan 9)  D

- Sarah Jarosz, "Days Can Turn Around" Polaroid Lovers  (Rounder, Jan 26)

- Dead South, "A Little Devil" Chains & Stakes  (Six Shooter, Feb 9)

- Angela Autumn, "Electric Lizard" single  (Cacti Omen, 23)  D

- William Elliott Whitmore, "Break Even" Silently the Mind Breaks  (Whitmore, Jan 26)

- Charlie Crockett, "That's What Makes the World Go Around (ft Willie Nelson)" single  (Son of Davy, 24)  D

- Kaitlin Butts, "Tomorrow Will Be Kinder" single  (Butts, 23)  D

- Joshua Ray Walker, "Thank You For Listening" single  (JRW, 23)  D

- Emily Frembgen, "Fentanyl" single  (Don Giovanni, 23)  D

- Tyler Childers, "Time of the Preacher (live)" Long Story Short: Willie Nelson at 90  (Sony, 23)

- Meg McRee, "The Moon (ft Hillary Lindsey & Lori McKenna)" History of Heartbreak EP  (Secret Place, 23)  D

- Brown Horse, "Shoot Back" Reservoir  (Loose, Jan 19)  D

- Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, "Backsliders" Revelations  (Abeyance, Mar 29)

- Old Heavy Hands, "The Flood" Small Fires  (OHH, Jan 19)

- Patterson Hood, "Let's Go Dancing (ft Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey)" Let's Go Dancing: Celebration of Kevn Kinney  (Tasty Goody, 24) 

- Jason Isbell & 400 Unit, "Look What You've Done To Your Brother" Let's Go Dancing: Celebration of Kevn Kinney  (Tasty Goody, 23)

- Glass Hours, "Scarlet Tongues" Glass Hours  (Cornelius Chapel, Mar 1)  D

- Son of the Velvet Rat, "Beautiful Day (ft Jolie Holland)" Ghost Ranch  (Fluff & Gravy, Mar 22)  D

- Brigid Mae Power, "Rose Marie" single  (BMP, 23)  D

- Adrianne Lenker, "Ruined" single  (4AD, 23)  D

- Buck Meek, "Cuero Dudes" single  (4AD, 24)  D

- Itasca, "Imitation of War" Imitation of War  (Paradise of Bachelors, Feb 9)  D

- Doug Paisley, "I Want To Be With You Always" Sad Old World  (Paisley, Jan 19)  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: