ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 22, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT THiS WEEK?!!
The Delines, "Left Hook Like Frazier" Mr Luck & Ms Doom (El Cortez, Feb 14)
We caught wind of a new Delines project a number of weeks ago. Each album reads like one of Willy Vlautin's stories set to music, sung by Amy Boone. With its cool horns, breezy guitar, and yacht rock keys, "Left Hook" sounds laid-back, though its lyrics say otherwise: I know it's hard to be kind to yourself / When you've been put down all along / You think you deserve it / That's why it feels right when you're certain that it's wrong. Musically and lyrically, nobody sounds like the Delines.
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Will Stewart, "Penny" single (Earth Libraries, Nov 12)
Birmingham's Stewart shared Live In Norway this Summer, but it's been a couple years since his last solo studio set. "Penny" is a surprise, delivering a rough, nearly punk edge to Stewart's Southern roots sound. We're hearing that it's the first of a possible series of cuts weaving tales around the denizens of Tuscaloosa's storied Moon Winx Lodge: Penny ain't tough / She just ran outta tears to cry / Plays a good punk, but she ain't really qualified.
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Luther Russell, "Downtown Girls" Happiness For Beginners (Curation, Jan 17)
Last we heard from LA's Luther Russell, he was collaborating with Fernando Viciconte on the fabulous Traitor's Table in 2019. Always one to work at his own terms, both as a producer and as a solo artist, Russell is poised for his return with January's Happiness For Beginners. The first single is a gritty urban portrait with jangle guitar fresh out of the early 90s: She's the perfect blur in a photograph.
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Patterson Hood, "A Werewolf & a Girl (ft Lydia Loveless)" Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams (ATO, Feb 21)
The initial single from Patterson Hood's first solo album in more than a decade is about everything you'd hope it could be. The moody cut features a duet vocal from Lydia Loveless, providing the woman's perspective on a song that the Drive-by Trucker intends to be about a the coming together and falling apart of Hood and a high school sweetheart. We can also look forward to contributions on the record from Kevin Morby, Waxahatchee, Wednesday, and more.
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Edith Frost, "Hold On" In Space (Drag City, Feb 28)
"Hold On" marks Edith Frost's awakening from a twenty-year artistic hibernation. After dwelling deep in the alt of alt.country, the Chicago outsider stepped away from the studio (only to resurface years later poking fun at Elon Musk and getting herself banned from Twitter). Drag City declares her return, the most Edith Frost record yet made.
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