Many thanks to John Lingan for writing a moving, fine-grained profile of Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen for the the Washington Post Magazine. Thanks also to the New York Times’ T: The Style Magazine for highlighting Moby Dick. Plus, watch Terry perform a rare, intimate house show produced by The Florida Room and premiered by the Wire and hear the Panhandle Mystery Band’s live session on KUTX.
That’s right: both Jake Xerxes Fussell and Itasca are setting out on European tours. You can even catch both of them at the End of the Road Festival in Dorset, UK this summer, Sept. 3–6. What a party!
Chicago songwriter and guitarist James Elkington—who has collaborated with everyone from Richard Thompson to Jeff Tweedy to Tortoise—has announced his new album, Ever-Roving Eye, out April 3rd, alongside the video for lead single “Nowhere Time” and UK tour dates with Joan Shelley.
James Elkington’s sophomore album expands upon his celebrated 2017 debut Wintres Woma as well as his recent production and arrangement work for the likes of Steve Gunn, Nap Eyes, and Joan Shelley. Casting glances back to British folk traditions as well as toward avant-garde horizons, these brilliant new songs buttress Elkington’s brisk guitar figures and baritone poesy with strings, woodwinds, and backing vocals by Tamara Lindeman of the Weather Station.
Following a sold-out release concert at Austin’s historic Paramount Theatre (hello, Houdini Hole), and already sailing forth into an armada of critical acclaim, Terry Allen today releases his magisterial new record Just Like Moby Dick into the deep blue sea. Order it from us, or find it in your favorite ship-shop or ocean stream. See you at the GRAMMYs.
Nap Eyes will release their new album Snapshot of a Beginner, their most concentrated and hi-fi effort to date (produced by Jonathan Low and James Elkington), on March 27th via Jagjaguwar / Royal Mountain, in partnership with PoB. This one’s for the procrastinators and the slow learners. This one’s for the bungled and the botched, for the fumbled and humbled. This one’s for the late bloomers. (Get 20% off the Naps catalog with coupon SNAPSHOT.)
This one’s for the procrastinators and the slow learners. This one’s for the bungled and the botched, for the fumbled and humbled. This one’s for the late bloomers, and ultimately, Nap Eyes’ latest full-length Snapshot of a Beginner—their boldest, most concentrated, and most hi-fi album to date (produced by Jonathan Low and James Elkington)—is proof that sometimes, the late bloomers bloom brightest.
Featuring backing vocals by Moby Dick secret weapon Shannon McNally, “Abandonitis” is a dusty and doomed Tex-Mex shuffle, while “All That’s Left is Fare-Thee-Well” delivers one of the most penetrating moments on the album, with Allen, McNally, and co-producer Charlie Sexton trading vocals. Both songs are, appropriately, about leaving and being left behind. Plus, more shows announced, including New York!
What a surprise to wake up to our first Grammy nomination, for our own Brendan Greaves’s exhaustive book accompanying Terry Allen’s collection of radio plays and long-form narrative audio works.
The first taste of a three-song suite—titled “American Childhood”—that forms the emotional core of upcoming album Just Like Moby Dick, “Bad Kiss” tells of a high school girl who enlists, leaving home and an abbreviated romance for the war-torn Middle East. But history repeats itself in an endlessly stuttering cycle of brutality and death: “It’s just the war/Same fucking war/It’s always been/Never ends.” Also, see images from Terry’s exhibition at Nina Johnson.
