Jake Xerxes Fussell Unveils New Track “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down.”

Jake Xerxes Fussell Unveils New Track “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down.”

“[Good and Green Again] is his most thoughtful, his most eloquent, and his most poignant explication of this idea… [that] for him a song is no older than the last time it was sung.” – Uncut (9/10, “Album of the Month”)

“Fussell’s the sort of folk singer who makes an art of picking the richest songs, honoring their cultural and historical contexts, and making something new and idiosyncratic to of them. He has the charm of the best bar raconteur, a storyteller who can sell fantastical yarns in a companionable way.” – MOJO (4 stars)

“[‘Love Farewell’ is] a heartbreaking song of love during war time that Fussell reinterprets and refreshes masterfully, his tender vocals and acoustic guitar turning the minimal source material into something rich and beautiful.” – NPR Music

“A gentle combination of finger-picked acoustic guitar and bass, ‘Breast Of Glass’ is punctuated by echoing horns, courtesy of Anna Jacobson. Meanwhile, ‘Frolic’ is a rootsy, twanging tune held together by sturdy foot stomps.” – Stereogum

Today, Jake Xerxes Fussell unveils new track, “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” the fourth and final single off of his forthcoming album, Good and Green Again, out January 21st. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. A timely song with deep roots in North Carolina textile mill history, it’s simultaneously gorgeous and melancholy, with Fussell singing: “And them rolling mills are burning down // down to the ground // and they’ll never build them back anymore.” The track features piano by James Elkington, who also produced the record.

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Good and Green Again is Fussell’s most conceptually focused and breathtakingly rendered album to date. As evident in previously released singles “Love Farewell,” “Breast of Glass,” and “Frolic,” Fussell is one of his generation’s preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) “folk” songs, a practice which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia and preciousness. By recontextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of the American South, he allows them to breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him. In all his work, Fussell humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways.

For Good and Green Again, Elkington and Fussell enlisted engineer Jason Richmond and a group of formidable players hailing from Durham, North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals.

“Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” – The New York Times

“So elegant…It’s relaxing in the way that pondering a Zen koan is relaxing, and sweet in the way that the wounded, honey-voiced blues of Mississippi John Hurt are sweet.” – Pitchfork

“Music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.” – NPR

Deluxe LP edition features 140g virgin vinyl; heavy-duty board jacket with song sources, credits, & artwork by Art Rosenbaum; & high-res Bandcamp download code.
CD edition features gatefold jacket with LP replica art.
All preorders include an immediate 320k MP3 download of lead single “Love Farewell” (featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy)
RIYL: Bob Dylan, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Ry Cooder, Bill Frisell, Dave Van Ronk, Michael Chapman, Jim Dickinson, Michael Hurley, The Youngbloods, Raccoon Records, James Elkington, Nathan Salsburg, William Tyler, Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Watch Good and Green Again manifest on the material plane.

Jake Xerxes Fussell 2022 Tour Dates

Jake is hitting the road in the US, UK, and EU this winter and spring. Tickets on-sale now. New dates are in bold; stay tuned for more TBA.

Sun. Jan. 9 – Charleston, WV @ Mountain Stage

Fri. Jan. 21 – Chapel Hill, NC @ The Nightlight ^

Sat. Jan. 22 – Richmond, VA @ The Camel

Sun. Jan. 23 – Washington, DC @ Pie Shop

Tue. Jan. 25 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA #

Wed. Jan. 26 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Knitting Factory

Thu. Jan. 27 – Boston, MA @ Club Passim

Fri. Jan 28 – Keene, NH @ Nova Arts

Sat. Jan. 29 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Caffe Lena

Thu. Feb. 17 – Los Angeles, CA @ Gold Diggers *

Sat. Feb 19 – Santa Monica, CA @ McCabe’s Guitar Shop *

Tue. Feb 22 – Portland, OR @ The Old Church *

Wed. Feb 23 – Seattle, WA @ Fremont Abbey *

Sun. May 1 – Kilkenny, IE @ Kilkenny Roots

Mon. May 2 – Kilkenny, IE @ Kilkenny Roots

Tue. May 3 – Dublin, IE @ Bello Bar

Wed. May 4 – Belfast, UK @ Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival

Fri. May 6 – Manchester, UK @ Gulliver’s

Sat. May 7 – London, UK @ Oslo

Sun. May 8 – Glasgow, UK @ Glad Cafe

Mon. May 9 – York, UK @ Fulford Arms

Wed. May 11 – Ultrecht, NL @ Tivoli (Club Nine)

Fri. May 13 – Nijmegen, NL @ Merleyn

Sat. May 14 – Cologne, DE @ King Georg

Mon. May 16 – Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus

Tue. May 17 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso

^ w/ special guest Rosali

# w/ special guest Mike Polizze

* w/ special guest Tom Brosseau

Jake’s self-titled 2015 album and What in the Natural World (2017) are casualties of the current vinyl supply-chain shortages and manufacturing delays, but the latter is now finally back in stock, and you can purchase the former on backorder. Thank you for your patience as we navigate the Great Vinyl Doldrums of 2021–22.

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