Will Oldham is again with one other new Bonnie “Prince” Billy album: The Purple Bird will arrive on January 31 through No Quarter. The follow-up to 2023’s Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You is led by the one “Our Home,” which options Grammy Award–profitable mandolinist Tim O’Brien. The track additionally comes with a music video crammed with stop-motion animations of Oldham and O’Brien performing the track inside the confines of image frames hanging on a dollhouse wall. Watch it beneath.
Created in Nashville, Tennessee, with producer David “Ferg” Ferguson, who additionally co-wrote seven of the tracks, The Purple Chook marks simply the second time in Oldham’s profession that he’s labored with a producer. Although Oldham has collaborated with dozens of different musicians through the years—Tortoise, Bryce Dessner, Matt Sweeney, Bitchin Bajas, and, most not too long ago, Bill Callahan—his indisposition to work with producers additional emphasizes this noteworthy determination.
“He’s an enormous of a person, an epic musical drive, an expensive pal,” Oldham mentioned of Ferguson. “Our work collectively on this file was the results of years of sharing laborious instances and nice joys, songs and tales, of constructing music collectively and aside. There’s quite a lot of belief on this file on Ferg’s half and on mine, and the belief was hard- and well-earned. After I hearken to the file, oftentimes I can’t assist however chuckle in marvel that life allowed me to take part in such a factor.”
In recent times, Oldham shared covers of songs by Johnnie Frierson, Joan Shelley, and Scout Niblett, in addition to an outdated tackle the Ramones’ “Outsider” that he recorded with the late David Berman, William Tyler, Chris Scruggs, and longtime collaborator Pete Townsend. He additionally paid tribute to Berman by linking up with Cassie Berman, Invoice Callahan, and others for a particular rendition of Silver Jews’ “The Wild Kindness.”
Examine Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “I See a Darkness” in “The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s.”
