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Jake Xerxes Fussell‘s sublime new album Out of Sight, lauded as “one of the most life-affirming and transcendent Americana albums in an age” by MOJO and celebrated with a New York Times profile and a five-star review today in The Guardian, is now available in stores and streaming worldwide.

What a thrill to see Jake  as an Editors’ Pick in the The New York Times. Thanks to T: The New York Times Style Magazine and Daniel Wagner for recommending Out of Sight, described as:

“His strongest album to date. Fussell is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.” 

There’s also some lovely Fred C. Fussell content just in time for Father’s Day!

You can listen to Ann Powers and Robin Hilton discuss how much they love Out of Sight on today’s NPR Music All Songs Considered overview of this week’s top album releases, and check out this interview with Jake on WUNC’s Morning Edition; German speakers can listen to a Deutschlandradio feature here.

Please consider a visit to Jake’s world this weekend; we guarantee you’ll leave refreshed.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaJCnhbVM64&list=PLGLGDT-9ZI4JnicPgrPWrvMqFRGUPF-w4]

On Out of Sight, Fussell’s third and most finely wrought album yet, he is joined for the first time by a full band, featuring Nathan Bowles (drums), Casey Toll (bass), Nathan Golub (pedal steel), Libby Rodenbough (violin, vocals), and James Anthony Wallace (piano, organ). An utterly transporting selection of traditional narrative folk songs addressing the troubles and delights of love, work, and wine (i.e., the things that matter), collected from a myriad of obscure sources and deftly metamorphosed, Out of Sight contains, among other moving curiosities, a fishmonger’s cry that sounds like an astral lament (“The River St. Johns”); a cotton mill tune that humorously explores the unknown terrain of death and memory (“Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues”); and a fishermen’s shanty/gospel song equally concerned with terrestrial boozing and heavenly transcendence (“Drinking of the Wine”).

Jake in Print

In addition to the five-star Guardian review, the good people over at Uncut Magazine and MOJO recently included thoughtful and beautifully written features on Jake. In Uncut you can find a 9/10 review that uses words like “outstanding,” “sublime,” and “fantastic” to describe his new record. John Mulvey of MOJO had some equally lovely words.

Please check out their work and support some fantastic music publications.

Jake Xerxes Fussell Tour Dates

Celebrate the new release by catching Fussell live! He is currently on the road in Europe playing guitar for Mississippi gospel group the Como Mamas (until June 21), but will also embark on a North American tour this fall supporting Daniel Norgren. Don’t miss his full-band Duke Performances Music in the Gardens record release show on July 10. 

Wed., Jul. 10 – Durham, NC @ Duke Gardens (Official Record Release Show with full band)

Wed. Sep. 18 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall*
Thu. Sep. 19 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar*
Fri. Sep. 20 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle*
Sun. Sep. 22 – Nashville, TN @ 3rd & Lindsley*
Wed. Sep. 25 – Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat*
Fri. Sep. 27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg*
Sat. Sep. 28 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall*
Sun. Sep. 29 – Montreal, QC @ Petit Campus*
Mon. Sep. 30 – Toronto, ON @ Great Hall*
Wed. Oct. 2 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club*
Thu. Oct. 3 – Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre*
Fri. Oct. 4 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre*
Sat. Oct. 5 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall*
Tue. Oct. 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom*

*Solo, with Daniel Norgren

Stream Jake’s Spring Playlist + Other Albums

Acknowledgments for Out of Sight

5 stars. These are exceptional songs, performed exceptionally well.

– The Guardian 

Jake is one of those folk musicians who has really dedicated his life to upholding traditional music, but not in a way that feels fussy, and that’s what I really love about him. Jake has gone electric in this record in a new way. He’s playing with a full band, his vocals really jump, and the arrangements are just beautiful on these old classic songs that he instills with real power and personality. Get on board with this guy! You’re going to have a good time.

– Ann Powers, NPR Music’s All Songs Considered

Neither rigidly authentic nor conspicuously modern, the NC folk scholar honors the past through transformation rather than reinvention. The music is so elegant as to resist stereotyping. 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. The past is always present; Fussell’s trick is to reveal that—if you know how to look—the present is always past, too.

– Pitchfork

Jake Xerxes Fussell creates music that resides at the seams of Appalachia and the cosmos.

– NPR Music’s All Songs Considered

9/10. An outstanding collection. Fussell’s sublime third album sees the singer and guitar once again exploring the furthest reaches of American folk and blues, excavating that seemingly bottomless archive and giving these lost songs a fresh life. Fussell is a fantastic singer and arranger, and here he’s working with a full band for the first time… They deliver a beautiful suite of diverse songs. There’s so much to admire throughout.

– Peter Watts, Uncut

He has a nearly encyclopedic grasp of various strains of musical traditions in the southeastern United States. His songs are lively and present-tense, full of richly imagined characters, grim tragedies, and everyday triumphs. But it’s the ways that he complicates and deepens those stories that makes the album so immersive and imaginative. To a certain extent, these songs are about remembering: not just Fussell remembering these songs and the people behind them, but the people in these songs recalling hard times.

– Stephen Duesner Uncut (5 pp. feature profile)

4 stars. Fussell is one of those rare artists who can transform folklore scholarship into living, breathing new music. On his third and best solo album … [he] has a full band to flesh out his vision, providing front porch grooves that carry the same kind of woody resonance as those of The Band. Tragic ballads are given a good-time swagger, ancient sing-alongs lovingly remade, for one of the most life-affirming and transcendent Americana albums in an age.

– John Mulvey, MOJO

4 stars. Fussell is the real thing. He discovers traditional songs — of the kind that Fahey would have called death chants, breakdowns and military waltzes — and recreates them faithfully but not fustily.

– Financial Times

As long as Jake Fussell is making records and playing shows, there is ample cause for optimism in this world. 

– Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Fussell’s voice is equal parts ragged and welcoming, richly giving these songs care and patience. It feels like an essential document of how the history of American music evolves and endures.

– Noisey

The spirit of Out of Sight is so direct, so simple, and yet so fulfilling as one gets to know it intimately. This kind of record is what brings many of us to traditional music.

– No Depression

He finds the DNA of traditional songs and brings them springing to life in the modern world, making ramble down blues turn to verdant country saunters and plaintive folk meditations. Fussell gives us all some strength to face the day, knowing that our sadness is universal and that with time all wounds will heal. It’s hard not to fall under his charms.

– Raven Sings the Blues

Jake Fussell understands a couple of things about old songs: they weren’t always old, and they changed as they went from hand to hand or sometimes country to country. They shouldn’t be trapped in an imaginary past, but should be refreshed and reinvented. Now, on his third album, he’s subtly shading his music with more instruments. It’s still uncluttered. Still melancholy. Still threaded through with that elegant, deceptively simple guitar—its tone like no other. This is a journey you need to share.

– Colin Escott, author of Hank Williams: The Biography