Jake Xerxes Fussell: <em>Hills of Mexico</em>

Jake Xerxes Fussell: Hills of Mexico

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Jake Xerxes Fussell returns with a wistful and timely interpretation of a traditional 19th c. ballad about going to Mexico to work the cattle drive, and the hardships and insecurity of underemployment and migrant work.

SKU: PoB-061 Category: Tags: , , , ,

About the Single

Jake Xerxes Fussell: vocals & guitar

Casey Toll: bass

Nathan Bowles: drums

Libby Rodenbough: violin

Recorded by Nick Petersen, Track & Field Recording, Durham, NC.

Mixed by Jeff Zeigler, Uniform Recording, Philadelphia, PA.

Mastered by Patrick Klem, Klemflastic Sound, Durham, NC.

“Hills of Mexico” is one of many narrative ballads where the singer-narrator is approached by a stranger in transit with a business proposition that turns out to be not so great for singer-narrator. Many of the European ballads of this kind deal with highwaymen and their exploits, mostly in the 17th and 18th centuries. In this particular (19th century) instance the proposition entails going to Mexico to work the cattle drive. Many regional variants from this family, alternately known as “The Trail of the Buffalo,” have been sung in a variety of musical contexts and communities. My version borrows heavily from Roscoe Holcomb’s narrative, which is mysterious in that it omits the Mexico part itself almost entirely. 

Thanks to Kevin McNamee-Tweed for the artwork: “Steamboat,” 2018, Glazed ceramic, 9.25” x 7”.

— Jake Xerxes Fussell

Highlights

Tracklist

1. “Hills of Mexico” 5:51

Catalog Number/Release Date

PoB-061 / March 5, 2021

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FORMAT

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Acknowledgments for Out of Sight

As he releases his third and strongest album to date … Fussell, a singer and guitarist, is creating his own legacy within the long lineage of traditional folk musicians and storytellers that have come before him.

– New York Times: T Magazine (Editors’ Pick)

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

– The Guardian

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

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

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

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

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