featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
January 28, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
We've just about reached the finish line for 2024: Month One. Just a reminder that we mark the end of every month with an accounting of our ten favorite songs from our Spotify ROUTES-casts. While some fellow blogs are still yawning off their long winter nap, we've found some great sounds with which to start off our New Year.
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT JANUARY?!!
1. Angela Autumn, "Electric Lizard" single (Cacti Omen, Dec 29)
2. Waxahatchee, "Right Back At It (ft MJ Lenderman)" Tigers Blood (Anti, Mar 22)
3. Marcus King, "Fuck My Life Up Again" single (Republic, Jan 19)
4. Daniel Romano, "Field Of Ruins" Too Hot To Sleep (You've Changed, Mar 1)
5. Leslie Stevens, "Blue Roses" Leslie Stevens (Stevens, Feb 23)
6. Willi Carlisle, "Higher Lonseome" Critterland (Signature Sounds, Jan 26)
7. Joe Pug, "Treasury Of Prayers" Sketch Of a Promised Departure (Nation Of Heat, Mar 8)
8. Adrianne Lenker, "Sadness As a Gift" Bright Future (4AD, Mar 22)
9. Sierra Ferrell, "Dollar Bill Bar" Trail Of Flowers (Rounder, Mar 22)
10. Sarah Jarosz, "Runaway Train" Polaroid Lovers (Rounder, Jan 26)
Aside from our obsession for new music, R&B is driven by our desire to write. More specifically, we do this every week as an outlet and a practice for our hope to craft original, meaningful thoughts about shared music. So very many blogs are cut-and-paste nowadays, but there remain a few brave/foolish souls who continue to publish their original writing about music. As we turn our attention to Willi Carlisle's new Critterland release, we'll draw your attention to a handful of very well-penned pieces that might set the table for our own review. Specifically, the writers for Stereogum, Arkansas Times, and No Depression have set a fine example of how quality music writing should look.
Willi Carlisle's Peculiar, Missouri garnered resounding praise upon its 2022 debut, introducing the world to a songwriter and performer of great promise, delivering his wise and wise-cracking songs from a deep well of knowledge and appreciation for folk and country traditions. And while his songs fell firmly in those lanes, Carlisle sang of drugs and outlaws, outcasts and queers, demonstrating a refreshingly sharp edge on pieces like "Cheap Cocaine" and "Life On the Fence".
For his follow-up, Willi Carlisle made the brilliant choice to partner with producer (and songwriter (and multi-instrumentalist)) Darrell Scott. Other than a couple notable guest spots, it's just Carlisle and Scott whose sounds populate Critterland, further rooting the sessions in trad territory, providing Carlisle with a foil and a mentor at a perfect time in his artistry. On the phenomenally rambling travelogue, "Higher Lonesome", his own harmonica and guitar are accompanied by Scott's iconic mandolin and lap steel to rousing effect. Carlisle has identified his Artist's Statement for the album in the song's lyrics: See I don't want to hit rock bottom, just to see how deep it goes / Shine a light on six feet under, so I ain't afraid to go / Prove in fact the end's as lovely as can be / When higher lonesome kills the bitter parts of me. Trailing a roadside litany of places and people, he sings of his incurable attraction to a life on the road in all its glory and its depravity.
To date, Carlisle has ranged across the vast frontiers of roots music, establishing himself alternately in country, bluegrass, folk, and americana territories. On Critterland, he has chosen to work primarily in an americana and folk lane, setting aside amplification and more advanced production techniques for a much more immediate effect. "Two-Headed Lamb" is built off a chillingly lovely poem by Laura Gilpin (closing with the indelible line: As he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual). Carlisle accompanies himself solely on button accordion, adding nothing extraneous or distracting to the unblinking cut: Even god can make a fuckup. "I Want No Children" features only Carlisle's fiddle and Scott's banjo, with valuable harmonies from singer-songwriter Jude Brothers. The song finds liberation in leaving no heirs, even as the writer recognizes the meaning inherent in our connections with the past: Kill my name / Call me home.
For his new collection, Willi Carlisle tightens and further focuses his songwriting, both lyrically and musically. In interviews, he is an unusually thoughtful and creative subject, a caring and curious artist. These qualities shine through in his rich lyrics on songs like the title cut. "Critterland" is a box of lyrical treasures, set to a racing acoustic ramble that recalls Joe Pug's early work. He sings, I am here for all the love that I can stand, later altering the verse: I am here for all the grief that I can stand. Carlisle's poetry is never indulgent or unnecessarily ornate, even as it reveals a consistent creativity in its obvious love for language: Why have a god if no one is saved / I think love is a burden if it ain't brave.
Critterland also finds the singer reining in his vocal, emphasizing his rich and resonant tones on songs like "The Great Depression". Atop harmonica and banjo, he sings of our role in the larger story of family and community: To win our kin a better life is still worth dying for. "Dry Country Dust" and "The Arrangements" are just two of the pieces that process the passing of loved ones, on a record where reminders of mortality are as generous as our opportunities for redemption: Thank god forgiveness comes in so many shapes. Darrell Scott's pedal steel drifts across the track like a breeze.
"Higher Lonesome" concludes with Willi Carlisle's admission: The artist has his suffering / And the gods will have their pain / By the time the ride is over / I'm sure I'll ask to ride again. The sharing of his character is one of Critterland's great revelations, reintroducing listeners to a man who acknowledges and even explores life's dark corners without succumbing to bitterness and resentment towards himself or others. "When the Pills Wear Off" seems a lovesong to late friends, adding tasteful strings for the record's fullest arrangement. It's a moving and meaning-full song, a light touch that dives deeply: He shines like the neon in the town's only bar / Slick as the needle and slim as the scar. On a high-profile release that might have prompted him to embrace the more simplistic elements of his developing craft, Carlisle and his producer have instead created a shining example of meaning in restraint.
Announcements of forthcoming records continue uninterrupted on our Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster. Since last Episode, we've added a healthy number of promising albums to the calendar. After a year of excellent country cover songs, Matthew Houck has announced his next original Phosphorescent project. Revelator will land on April 5, via the Verve label. Canada's Elliott BROOD have given a date for the companion LP to November's Town collection. The appropriately titled Country is slated for an April 12 release (Six Shooter). England's roots-pop Lucy Rose will follow 2019's No Words Left with more words. This Ain't the Way You Go Out arrives on April 19, courtesy of the Communion Group. Country traditionalist Charley Crockett is due for the next record in his prolific oeuvre. $10 Cowboy debuts on April 26 on the artist's own Son of Davy label. Finally, Lawrence Rothman is a familiar name as a producer, writer and a contributor to others' projects. Due April 26 (KRO), Plow That Broke the Plains is an opportunity for them to present a relatively rare but intriguing solo album.
ROUTES-cast January 28, 2024
- Katy Kirby, "Redemption Arc" Blue Raspberry (Anti, 24) D
- Leslie Stevens, "Such a Good Time Without You" Leslie Stevens (Stevens, Feb 23)
- Phosphorescent, "Revelator" Revelator (Verve, Apr 5) D
- Fruit Bats, "On the Avalon Stairs (live)" Starry-Eyed In Stereo (Merge, May 10) D
- Hurray For the Riff Raff, "Colossus of Roads" Past Is Still Alive (Nonesuch, Feb 23)
- Band of Horses, "Is There a Ghost (live)" Acoustic At the Ryman Vol 2 (Huger Lewis, 24) D
- Brown Horse, "Reservoir" Reservoir (Loose, 24)
- David Nance, "Tumbleweed" David Nance & Mowed Sound (Third Man, Feb 9)
- Lucy Rose, "The Racket" This Ain't the Way You Go Out (Communion, Apr 19) D
- Nathan Kalish, "Existential AI" Southern Guitar Poverty Center Vol 2 (Yellow Canary, Mar 22) D
- Lawrence Rothman, "Plow That Broke the Plains" Plow That Broke the Plains (KRO, Apr 26) D
- Bones of JR Jones, "My Hometown" Slow Lightning (Deluxe) (Bones, Feb 9)
- Thee Sinseers & Joey Quinones, "Can't Do That To Her" Sinseerly Yours (Colemine, Mar 22) D
- Doug Paisley, "World's Worst Loser" Sad Old World (Paisley, 24)
- Staves, "I Don't Say It But I Feel It" All Now (Nonesuch, Mar 22)
- Ana Egge, "Sorry You're Sick" single (StorySound, 24) D
- Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, "Revelations" Revelations (Abeyance, Mar 29)
- Sam Outlaw, "Ways To Go" single (Black Hills, 24) D
- Wyatt Flores, "Milwaukee" single (Island, 24) D
- Tyler Halverson, "Takes 8" single (Atlantic, 24) D
- Charley Crockett, "$10 Cowboy" $10 Cowboy (Son of Davy, Apr 26) D
- Jamie Lin Wilson, "Maritime Moon" single (In a Wink, 24) D
- Jason Hawk Harris, "The Risk You Take" single (Bloodshot, 24) D
- Rod Picott, "Digging Ditches" Starlight Tour (Welding Rod, Feb 2) D
^ Willi Carlisle, "Jaybird" Critterland (Signature Sound, 24)
- William Elliott Whitmore, "Golden Door To An Empty Place" Silently the Mind Breaks (Whitmore, 24)
- Chatham County Line, "Heaven" Hiyo (Yep Roc, 24)
- Sarah Jarosz, "Runaway Train" Polaroid Lovers (Rounder, 24)
- Brittany Howard, "Prove It To You" What Now (Island, Feb 9)
- Circles Around the Sun & Mikaela Davis, "After Sunrise" After Sunrise EP (Kill Rock Stars, Apr 5) 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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