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Josh Fortenbery wrote “Heaven’s Above” as a “eulogy for nihilism.” He’d spent most of his life seeing a broken system he couldn’t fix and living for himself. Now, seeing a new generation spring forth from his friends and family, he’s decided he has to at least try to improve his community despite knowing full well he doesn’t have any of the answers.

“At some point it becomes impossible to stand on the sidelines and watch things fall apart without recognizing that you’re somehow complicit,” said Fortenbery. “I’m not sitting here on a cloud above it all, I’m in the middle of it.” 

Fortenbery’s album Tidy Memorial, with songs titles such as “Is It Me?,” grapples with current and pandemic era politics primarily through self examination and calls for understanding. There are a few songs on the album, “Steven,” for example, that show Fortenbery is not neutral in any discussions over justice. But he tends to focus more on structural problems and individual solutions. “I could argue with a statue and still think I won,” he sings in “Groundhog.” 

“I think we all intuitively understand that it’s becoming more difficult to talk about meaningful things without devolving into name calling,” said Fortenbery. “Worldwide, we’re all dealing with the same information bubbles and same social media algorithms that push us into these media diets that are tailored to our own suspicions and biases.”

“Nobody cares like I do/But I’m pretty sure you think/that nobody cares like you,” sings Fortenbery in “Heaven’s Above.” It doesn’t seem like he’s calling for a change in viewpoints on behalf of either party, rather a little bit of empathy and recognition of similarities. He’s smart enough to realize nothing will change until those bubbles and silos start breaking.

“Is there a world in which enough people realize they’re being lied to? Maybe that makes folks start to ask more questions,” said Fortenbery. “Maybe this is all very optimistic, but I’ve found it more difficult to lean into complete hopelessness because it’s harder to get out of bed that way.”

If “Tidy Memorial” calls for greater dialogue between opposing sides,“Poppy’s Waltz” is a recognition of both how easy and difficult that can be. On the one hand, Fortenbery had a good relationship with his grandfather and found many admirable traits in the man, as the lyrics suggest. Still, they disagreed on the topic of Israel and had to avoid the topic. “Love can’t bridge all gaps,” Fortenbery admits.

“Most American Jews his age came to view the foundation of the state of Israel as destiny and a safe haven. I’ve grown up with a different set of life experiences. I’ve always viewed it through the lens of apartheid, separation, oppressive state control, treating people the way you don’t want to be treated,” Fortenbery said. “It was less of a disagreement and more of a taboo in that household because there was no way to see eye to eye. As some of the lyrics give away, I’m prone to think I’m correct; I still think I’m right about this one. That doesn’t mean that he was a bad person. I still think you can live your life in a way that shows you’re compassionate, kind, caring, while holding some beliefs that I might find difficult to accept.” 

Years into a tragic situation that saw more than a thousand Israelis kidnapped and murdered and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and Gaza flattened, the topic remains extraordinarily difficult to address. The Trump administration has essentially taken partial control of universities on the basis that they didn’t do enough to protect Jewish students from those protesting Israel. Support for Palestine, or at least opposition to the Israeli government, is now a mainstream view in the Democratic Party. Trump takes credit for having secured a ceasefire in the region, but American bombs are still landing in Gaza. It’s difficult enough for me to talk about situation this fraught and complex, but I’m not being asked to weigh in. Fortenbery is.

“It feels to me like a tricky conversation to enter in the regular world as a Jewish person. There certainly has been an increase in antisemitism, though I don’t equate anti-Israel sentiments with antisemitism,” said Fortenbery. “It’s not like I have any particular set of skills that would fix anything, but it seems like there’s an expectation of you just because of your born identity.”

Fortenbery passes some judgement on local police on “Steven,” which describes a tragic confrontation between them and a homeless Alaskan. But he’s mostly asking questions, sharp as they may be: “Is that life?/Is that it?/Something you can take away and say he deserved it?” 

“He was a pretty quiet, gentle guy, but like many people who are homeless had mental struggles. He had this big beautiful malamute dog who always wanted a pet,” said Fortenbery. “The police wanted to question him in conjunction with some alleged assault that happened downtown. He was having an episode and always carried a knife with him. They claim he took a step toward him and he was shot and killed. This is not a unique story to Juneau. This happens everywhere. I don’t know what the right answer is but certainly we’re not doing enough.” 

With tough questions like this, with political conditions worsening throughout the world, with Alaska quite literally entering perpetual darkness, Fortenbery admits he may be spoon-feeding himself positive thoughts. But he’s forming them through positive actions and involvement in his local and music communities. Even the negatives he focuses on in his music aren’t representative of all his thoughts.

“We can make people feel. We can make beautiful art. We have a nice afternoon together. We can go out and provide food to people who need it. It’s not hard to go out and volunteer at a shelter for the afternoon. There’s a bunch of little human interactions that are available to everyone. If I just read the news, then I’d be sucked into that pit of despair that if you just listen to my songs, you’d think I’m in all the time,” said Fortenbery. “But music is my way to process the things that upset me so that hopefully when I venture out into the world, I’m not a miserable bastard all the time. Hopefully, I’ll find a little bit of beauty and joy because this is the only chance we’re going to get at living.”

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Josh Fortenbery and the songs we discussed, starting with “Heaven’s Above,” which seeks self improvement in an increasingly absurd political environment. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.joshfortenbery.com for more.

Trust Fall is a mature record from an up and coming artist. Hannah Delynn’s first track, “For The Record,” is a goodbye song that’s part apology, part affirmation of the decision to leave. There’s very little bitterness about a situation that had to have been fairly difficult. “I want the best for you,” Delynn sings of someone who hurt her enough to cause the singer to end something that could at times be beautiful. 

There are folk albums that paint scenes with such detail you can practically see what you’re hearing. Trust Fall perhaps the exact opposite of that. There are breakups, fallings out, and other strains but we never get a clear picture of what’s going on past the notion that one song might be more about a family member and another focused on romance. Somehow, that’s a good thing. There’s a universality to songs heavy on feelings and concepts and light on specifics. There’s also a little dignity and privacy for the artist and subjects. An artist may choose to put her life on display, but those around her probably haven’t. When she says she wants the best for someone, it’s easy to believe her. She’s providing them with the room to achieve whatever that looks like. Delynn’s message of understanding is “a learned practice,” but it certainly feels genuine.

“I have realized over time that most people are trying to do their best with the tools they have,” said Delynn. “I think something that’s been really helpful for me is to try to assume goodwill and good intent and recognize everyone’s humanity. It has not been an easy journey by any means, but I think it grants myself a lot more peace.”

The best part about an album like this is the measured quality of Delynn’s assessment. She’s not lashing out or beating herself up. She’s on her own list of people she wants the best for. 

During our conversation, I decided to stick with the spirit of Trust Fall and respect the privacy of Delynn and those involved. I was happy to ask her to explain what she meant, but reluctant to push for details on what happened. If she had wanted to air those parts of her life, I suspect she would have addressed them under the optimal conditions of being able to write and edit the stories. 

“Talking about things that have hurt me was a very new experience and I felt really scared about doing it,” said Delynn, who added that some of the subjects of her songs have heard what she wrote. “I’m trying to infuse talking about difficult things with some grace. A lot of this record is beginning to realize my own part. Being human is hard sometimes, and I’d rather go into this record stating that I acknowledge that.”

Delynn has had to get comfortable with a lack of closure. Many of the situations she sings about on Trust Fall are unresolved in some way. Just as there are details missing in the stories we’re hearing, there are pieces missing for their author.

“So much of my experience of healing has been being able to sit with that discomfort and uncertainty,” said Delynn. “You might not get the conversation that you still hope to have with a friend, a family member, an ex. I think the way we can help ourselves is to get comfortable in discomfort, or at least find tools and ways of coping that create more peace within ourselves and therefore ripples out into our lives.”

Many of Delynn’s difficult conversations on the album are with herself. She’s questioning her past actions. She’s unsure how she let others get her into bad places.

“It’s painful to reckon with time lost. There’s so much up to that point where [I wonder] why didn’t I see this sooner,” asked Delynn. “We can cultivate gratitude. You wouldn’t have gotten to the good place if you hadn’t had messed up. You’re only becoming the best version of yourself because of that hardship.”

It’s a muscle she describes as having to develop slowly as she learned how to speak to herself in a different way.

“How would I talk to someone else I love if I don’t want to talk to myself this way,” Delynn asked. 

“Leaf on a River,” the album’s most gorgeous song, is about recognizing that she needs to relax and let things be. She came to understand that she can’t control others and can’t change the past. 

“If I can forgive her/I might reach the sea,” she realizes. 

“I feel like you can catch glimpses of it,” she said of her sea. “I think I’m getting better at creating my own internal peaceful sea. But it certainly can be stormy weather in there sometimes.”

The name Trust Fall comes from Delynn making vital changes to heal, even if it meant stepping onto unsteady and new ground. Her sense of having lost time and not lived to her fullest it at its strongest on the serene but agonized last track “Waiting.” 

“I don’t feel quite finished yet/When this sun sets/maybe I’ll get another,” Delynn sings on waiting.

“I had been experimenting in my life by instead of waiting for the conditions to be right, acting and hoping a net will appear,” Delynn said. “Almost testing the universe in a way by leading with the kind of life I want to have and seeing what responds.”

Delynn has learned to readjust her expectations in all kinds of relationships and to change what she values.

“When someone shows you what they’re willing to give you, I think it’s learning to read that and accept that and begin to set your expectations accordingly,” Delynn said. “Reciprocity has become a huge gauge.”

Trust Fall is a gorgeous and calming record that covers all kinds of awareness of self and awareness of others. It’s mature in both wanting the right things for others and learning to accept what might be best for yourself. While I tend to prefer albums rich in detail, this one in particular works with fairly little: it’s probably best to fill in the gaps with details from your own life.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Hannah Delynn and the songs we discussed, starting with For The Record, which extends grace in a difficult situation. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://hannahdelynn.com for more.

For the last several years and few albums, Maia Sharp has been starting over. She left a decades-long marriage and her home state. It hasn’t always been an easy process, but Tomboy is an excellent window into someone embracing change and opening herself up to life. The title track, which explain one thing that’s remained consistent about her since childhood, is the only song to suggest things can be constant.

“I was pretty resistant to change, or afraid of it. Now it’s a theme,” said Sharp. “I want to always be changing. I want to always be looking for the next thing. I welcome things that are a little scary. After doing this for 30 years, I don’t want to be too comfortable.”

Sharp had initially resisted taking the big swings needed to make her changes. Part of that was being unsure how or when to start. Sharp also was hesitant to get divorced or move across the country until she could make sure she didn’t lose her connection to her now ex-wife. 

“We worked hard. We spent a year redefining who we were going to be moving forward knowing that we were no longer going to be married,” said Sharp. “That was what made it possible for me to make the changes. It was very important for me to keep her in my life. It was very important for me to keep her close.”

The process has paid off after a few difficult years. 

“Even when I left, I still wasn’t sure, but I knew I wasn’t going to see it from the inside. I had to get into another situation to realize what had to grow,” said Sharp. “Three albums ago I’m still in the storm. My last album I’m on the edge of it. This one I feel like I’m pretty much out of it and have a clearer view looking back and hopefully looking forward as well.”

Sharp’s openness to looking forward can sometimes come with difficulties. On “A Fool In Love Again,” she seems to realize that a new relationship might not come with the same magic associated with falling in love in her 20s. She describes the recklessness and thrills as “drowning out the truth in my desire.” Now in her early 50s, Sharp is looking again and finding it difficult to embrace anyone wholeheartedly. 

“I want to fall in love from this new vantage point in life,” said Sharp. “Is it the same? I don’t know what it’s going to feel like. I don’t know if [I will] either. I see red flags from a mile away. It can’t possibly feel like it did when I was 25. Hopefully it will be its own thing.”

One of the funnier songs on the album is “Counterintuition,” where Sharp essentially admits she needs to start doing and thinking the opposite of whatever she’s been doing to have success in the dating world. A lot has changed, most significantly the introduction of dating apps, and Sharp is recognizing the sorts of things that works in a marriage don’t do nearly as well there. 

“I think I came out of the gate being too open. This is how vulnerable and real I am. I think it scared everybody away,” said Sharp. “It felt like for the first three months or so, everything I said was just the wrong thing. Everything was attracting exactly what I didn’t want. At first it was really frustrating and then it was just hilarious.”

As an artist, Sharp has benefited from her openness and ability to express herself. She also talks about benefiting from not wanting to be famous or chase any huge amount of financial success.

“Here’s the real me. Hopefully you like it, but if you don’t, it doesn’t change anything,” said Sharp. “The more that I settle into that idea and the less that I’m concerned about how other people respond, the better they seem to respond.”

As the changes have come, Sharp has been careful to make sure she’s being authentic to herself, especially as someone living in the public eye. 

“I knew to be careful to check myself at every point along the way that this feels right,” Sharp said. “If you start to go down a path that isn’t entirely you, if you start to represent yourself as even something that you are slightly not, you have to keep on backing that up and doubling down.” 

“Nobody survives a good conversation/nobody survives a good song/whoever you were before the transformation is gone,” begins “Any Other Way.” The lines are Sharp’s strongest on Tomboy and give the listener an idea of just how complete her process of change has been. She points to her work with Songwriting With Soldiers as the inspiration for the thought.

“I walk out of those rooms every single time – and it’s been over 100 times now – and I know that I’ve been changed,” said Sharp, who believes change comes fairly easily with if one is “just not resistant to it.”

Songwriting, in addition to a source of income and an outlet, is a way of measuring change and making it permanent for Sharp.

“Very often for me a song is a reminder of something I learned. I don’t want to forget it,” said Sharp. “Having that song out there, every time I hear it, it will help me to make sure I don’t lose any ground.” 

Sharp mentioned that the most satisfying part of her career, especially post Covid, has been interacting with fans who perhaps felt they hadn’t survived her songs unchanged.

“In the past few years I’ve come to really enjoy the live shows and the hang afterwards. I get to real time, first hand, see the reaction and hear what the songs meant,” said Sharp. “Sometimes there’s a meaning in the song that I didn’t intend. But they heard it because that’s what they needed. It’s overwhelming. It fills me up.”

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Maia Sharp and the songs we discussed, starting with Asking for a Friend, which, as you might expect, is not about a friend. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.maiasharp.com for more.

On Clever Rabbits, Ann Liu Cannon went down some truly mythological rabbit holes. Her album documents thousands of years of folk tales and religion, 25 years of living, and an era gone by. Cannon’s intense love songs, a few years after the fact, don’t always make sense to her present day self.

“I think at that point in time I experienced love in a very innocent, naive, wholesome way, but it meant that I was very prone to losing all sense of my orders and dissipating internally,” said Cannon. “I felt very messy and very lost in where I ended and where other people began.”

If Cannon wasn’t able to experience healthy love, she was at least able to experience biblical emotions over it. “Jealous God” is a hurricane of emotion and sound formed around the suspicion of a partner cheating. Cannon justifies her jealousy by matching it with that of God, who is many times over stated to be jealous in the Bible. “He made us in his own eyes,” she sings. 

“When you’re in that jealous space, you play God in a way. It’s not an ideal thing to do to other people and yourself,” said Cannon. “I grew up around a lot of Sacred spaces. My schooling was through the Church of England and my father taught Sacred architecture. It didn’t mean that I was partaking – I’m not religious in a straightforward manner – but those environments mean a lot to me.”

The stories mean a lot to Cannon too. She said that she often compares events in her life to myths and proverbs. Speaking with Cannon, it’s clear that she sees just about everything on multiple levels. One line about smelling the fear of London was meant as both a reference to how the nose clears during moments of intense anxiety and how rabbits are always twitching their nose. When she identifies with characters in myth, she examines the implications that might have for her true desires. It’s a web of thought that’s nearly impossible to follow from an outsider’s perspective and yet genuinely fun to hear Cannon explain. 

“These are some of the oldest texts we have and I like to root everything I’m doing in the past,” Cannon said. “I naturally want to draw on these myths and legends to help me tell my story.”

While Cannon’s father came from England, her mother came from China. That means another few thousand years worth of myth have followed Cannon to the UK and reside within her. The album title is based on the proverb that “clever rabbits need three burrows,” or it’s smart to have backup plans. In one of the more surreal moments in the interview, Cannon described historic stone carvings depicting three rabbits that appear both in China and England. They hold a special place for Cannon, who identifies with both cultures and the fact that she was born in the Year of the Rabbit. 

“I got around in life a bit like a rabbit,” Cannon said at one point. “It’s very keen on burrowing away, very keen on the home, very sensitive to danger almost to the point where it gets very startled and at the very last minute they bolt. I think other people find the bolting quite jarring.”

Cannon described her own album as self-absorbed. She’s someone who often examines her own work critically, right down to her words during our conversation.

“To exist is to be angry,” she said at one point. “Did I say that? Oh my God I’m so dramatic” immediately followed.

To some extent, Cannon has a point. Others who feature on the album, most prominently her ex, don’t get a chance to share their perspective, she noted. While that’s not usually how albums work, the fact that Cannon is noticing limitations to her work shows she’s expanded her point of view since.

“There are things that are actually happening that you think are happening and there are things that are happening that you really have no idea,” Cannon said. “I was living in this myth land where all these things made sense to me. I feel safest in the written word.”

The surreal “Gobbleknoll,” a song about a myth about a hill that eats people, shows the way Cannon moves from myth to realization. In the story, a rabbit saves the day by ripping out the hill’s intestines. Her first reaction to the story was as a fan of interesting stories. (“This is fucking awesome,” she said.) Then she began identifying with the rabbit, as she tends to do. Before long, it was time to make a change.

“Perhaps if I want to kill my home then perhaps I’m not meant to be here and I’m not really a rabbit at all,” Cannon said. “Maybe you’re beyond the story you’re telling yourself. I can move beyond this story.” 

On “Mên-an-Tol,” which references a historical site in the UK, Cannon wishes to “love like humans do.” It seems telling that she’s asking this of a rock formation instead of an elder or peer. Being lost in Cannon’s head is a truly interesting experience, even if only for an album.

There’s one song on the album about someone she loves that is beautiful and thoughtful beyond anything she wrote about a partner. “I held him like he held me once,” she sings of her dying father on “False Hope.”

“I was visualizing forward what that death was going to be. I wanted to write a song that was very joyful,” Cannon said. “The process of watching someone die gave me so much joy. He was there at my first moments in the world and I was there in his last breaths.”

Cannon described it as more of an honor than a typical feeling of happiness and pointed out that a lot of meaning in our lives comes from the fact that they are temporary.

“When you’re confronted with death in that way, every other emotion gets so much more precious,” said Cannon. “The terror and the pain in that situation meant that when I did feel joy, that joy was so much more appreciated.”

It’s here that Cannon’s grasp of large time scales and the patterns of human stories benefits her most. If myth helps Cannon to process loss and to outgrow an old self image, it may just be a more healthy lens through which to view the world than she realizes. It’s strange, but it works.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Ann Liu Cannon and the songs we discussed, starting with Jealous God, which kicks things off with a fire and brimstone intensity. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.annliucannon.co.uk for more.

Trapper Schoepp’s first encounter with the worst disease he’d ever face came at a doctor’s office. Schoepp was dealing with chronic pain as a result of some BMX injuries and surgeries that had left him feeling a bit like “Frankenstein” and his doctor had decided the best course of treatment was a steady supply of pain pills. “You ain’t gave me nothing but a loaded gun,” Schoepp sings of the encounter.

Osborne is an album that traces addiction from first contact to recovery. It documents highs, lows, freedom, hopelessness, and searing anger. In our discussion, Schoepp admitted that it was difficult for him to talk about the issues that he faced. Addiction still isn’t an easy subject despite the overwhelming number of people who have faced it.

“There’s a mental health epidemic in America and an addiction epidemic in America. We’ve come a long way in terms of mental health and normalizing it, but I think addiction’s another thing,” said Schoepp. “There’s a lot of shame and isolation and guilt attached to it. What people need is acceptance and community and love. They don’t need more shame. A lot of people feel great shame for their addiction and it creates this vicious cycle.”

Schoepp sings on the album that he likes to do what he feels. BMX biking seemed like a good outlet for that. 

“It felt artistic at times. It was a cool way to express yourself as a kid,” said Schoepp. These days he expresses himself through music after injuries derailed him in more ways than one. “[It was] some pretty gnarly stuff for a kid to go through. The spinal decompression surgery was a tough one.”

Schoepp was given opioids by a doctor who seemed like he couldn’t prescribe enough pain pills to the young man, who was suffering from conditions like sciatica. While the album suggests the doctor should be classified as a criminal, Schoepp took a more nuanced approach in our conversation. 

“I think a doctor is influenced by an environment much greater than themself,” said Schoepp. “At the time, the environment was to put bandaids over pain that was deemed chronic or incurable. In some instances they’re warranted, especially in clinical settings. They’re dangerous. There needs to be more guardrails. Those medications have a way of tricking and training your brain.”

The environment Schoepp described had to do with an aggressive marketing push by Purdue Pharmaceutical, run by the Sackler family. There’s a little less nuance here and on the album, where Schoepp sings “Satan is a Sackler.” 

“The Sackler family really popularized the idea that chronic pain had to be treated forever,” Schoepp said. “They were really responsible for the opioid epidemic in America. They created this empire of pain. They were evil geniuses for creating the illness of chronic pain. They knew what they had. They knew it was highly addictive and they promoted it anyway. They blamed poor people in rural communities for getting addicted to their substances and they didn’t take responsibility.”

The judicial system decided they should take responsibility and forced them to pay $7.4 billion for their malfeasance. 

“There’s no amount of money for the pain that they caused, but it’s something,” said Schoepp, who said he’d be uncomfortable holding a bottle of pills to this day. The opioids served as a gateway drug into other substances for Schoepp, much like they did for many other Americans who became addicted by following their prescriptions.

“Osborne” isn’t a bleak album. It gets its name from the unit of a standout rehab facility Schoepp attended in Minnesota. It also happens to be the same facility Ozzy Osbourne recovered in. 

“If Ozzy can do it, I can do it,” Schoepp remembered thinking.

The process of recovery involved letting go of some hard feelings and developing willpower.

“It came in a couple different waves. I white knuckled getting off pain killers and it was absolute hell,” said Schoepp. “I came back into some other substances that I thought were not as addictive but ended up being just as much as an issue for me. I kind of went mad and I ended up at the Hazleton Betty Ford Clinic in Minnesota where you address the whole person.”

The approach has paid off. Schoepp moved past the attitude on display on the tragic and gorgeous “Tomorrow’s For Quittin’” and stuck with it. It certainly wasn’t a linear process, he explained, but by the time we spoke, Schoepp was wearing a sunhat and sitting in a field of sunflowers, speaking soulfully about what he went through.

“I think you need to follow your nose and follow your heart. Do the best you can and don’t be too hard on yourself That’s a big thing in recovery,” said Schoepp. “You go in trying to fix everything and you get this analysis paralysis. There are just little things you can do to get through the day.”

Schoepp says he’s still growing and considers himself and his art a work in progress. He chose to end the album on a note of encouragement. “Suicide Summer” is seemingly addressed to other addicts with much the same message he felt Ozzy was sending him: if he can make it, “so can you.” 

“I think it’s easier to not deal with something and move on,” Schoepp said. “The brave thing is to go head on into the storm.”

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Trapper Schoepp and the songs we discussed, starting with Loaded, which introduces us to his first encounter with prescription painkillers.. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://trapperschoepp.com for more.

Anna Ling is in tune with something much bigger than herself. It’s natural, scientific, and spiritual. Carefully considered and instinctual. Anyone who listens to Light will understand that Ling has a unique connection to the world around her. She describes the human condition as being part of a mycelium, after the wide-reaching interconnected underground fungi. 

What’s remarkable is that even other creatures sense her respect and love for all that’s alive. Sitting in a barn, Ling received a visit on her shoulder from a butterfly.

“The tips of its wings had gotten caught up with cobwebs,” said Ling. “I brought the butterfly onto my hand and spent awhile just taking the cobwebs away from the butterfly’s wings and I managed to take enough of them away that they opened back up again. I took the butterfly outside and it flew away.”

It’s a serene and joyful moment. For Ling, it led to a beautiful piece on love and the interconnectedness of every being. A chance event became an opportunity for her to reflect: “I’m not really good at asking for help. I think that’s part of our hyper-individualized culture. The experience was such a huge gratitude. I felt like this butterfly had trusted me with this huge task.” 

It was Ling’s line about mycelium that really drew me in. It’s an obscure bit of knowledge that is only acquired through actively seeking more information about nature. Evolution, the Big Bang, and plenty more ideas more at home in a textbook show up on this fairly artsy folk album. 

“I love the imagery in science,”said Ling. “I love science as a creative way of understanding the world. I’m less into the nuts and bolts and more into the way these ideas make me feel.”

On “The Moon,” Ling addresses a relative so distant that she was among the first to leave the ocean: “Daughter of sea/

Grandmother tell me/Did you long for the land/What old song drew you up from the deep?”

Again, Ling starts reaching across the mycelium for connections.

“There are cultures around the world where they know the stories of their ancestors for numerable generations,” said Ling. “I don’t really know my grandparent’s grandparents. That’s kind of where the cutoff is. There’s this incredible mystery that goes all the way back to oneness.” 

She describes our one earliest ancestors as prone to kindness: “Some cell that decided to integrate its fellow cell rather than kill it.”

While most would agree that sexuality is part of the natural world, Ling writes as though the natural world is part of sex. On “Limerence,” she writes I am blood I am grit/With my thighs around your hips/I am the waves crashing cliffs/I am tectonic shifts

“Is sexual connection not one of the most intriguing and strange and wonderful part of this human experience?,” asked Ling, who said she often writes in moments of overwhelm. “Most of my most intense experiences have been romantic sexual relationships.”

A standout moment on the album compares a dead seagull tangled in plastic to Jesus Christ. One died for our sins, the other died as a result of them. The fact that we’re aware that life will eventually end is what Ling believes sets us apart from other life forms. Part of wondering about humanity and the natural world is contemplating death. 

“The structures that we’re living within will end; I can’t see how they won’t,” said Ling. “But we don’t know what’s on the other side. I feel like we’ve got everything to play for. We don’t have to necessarily nosedive into the sea.”

Ling’s spiritual beliefs, while unconventional, share a foundation with that of many other religions.

“I firmly believe that the core of this being is love and peace and light, said Ling. “We do tend to cover it up very successfully, but I have a great faith.”

Don’t let the lyrics distract you from some absolutely gorgeous sounds. Ling’s vocals range from airy to throaty on “Inevitable,” which would’ve made a sonic impression anyway its African folk instrumentation. The remaining nine songs are mostly rooted in English folk, as one might expect from a Devon artist. There’s something slower and softer about this music, though. The light Ling named this album for is not a harsh sun on a hot day, but one that illuminates and soothes. It’s gently penetrating the canopy on a walk through the forest. It’s just strong enough to see by and lasting enough to keep searching. 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Anna Ling and the songs we discussed, starting with Butterly, which demonstrates that even nature understands Anna’s connection to nature. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.annaling.co.uk for more.

Fitting in is not easy to do for many people. At 6’8”, Ross Thorn quite literally has trouble fitting in. Airplanes and cars are not his friends. There’s no disappearing into the crowd for a man who towers above it. Yet Thorn plays the situation for comedy before making a quick pivot to a more meaningful thought.

“There’s lots of people who have an even harder time fitting in,” said Thorn before listing a few marginalized groups. “Society doesn’t make it easy.” 

That transition in our conversation exemplifies two of the reasons Fitting In is such a beautiful work. First, Thorn is confident in his use of humor and his ability to leverage it to make a point. Second, he’s deeply empathetic, even when discussing his own problems. The third selling point of the album is Thorn’s recognition that there’s no shortcut when it comes to emotional processing.

The title track is a radical example of the self love needed to heal. Thorn steps out of his body to sing to himself, ending the song by repeating the phrase “I love you so.” 

“It’s a newer thing for me to say to myself,” said Thorn. “It feels really good to get to a place where you can say that.”

Thorn’s songwriting is certainly at its sharpest when he’s involving humor. On the song “Midwestern Goodbye,” Thorn chooses to demonstrate rather than describe a drawn out farewell. There’s even a point where the song comes to a natural end and the music stops. And yet, it continues.

“Goodbyes take forever. We’re all aware of someone who takes 45 minutes standing in the doorway,” Thorn said of his native region. “I think it’s a beautiful cultural phenomenon. I think it’s longing to connection in an area that has brutal winters.”

What starts with a joke ends with a deeper observation. There’s gentle humor like “Midwestern Goodbye” and then there’s cringe-worthy dark humor on “Pick-a-dee-day.” Grandad always said to keep your head up, the song’s logic goes, so any problem is all a perspective of attitude. Thorn goes so far as to tell an orphan to smile. By that point, the lines have even ceased to rhyme. The world view his character has been living with is causing him to crumble. 

“It’s inspired, weirdly enough, by The Lion King. Simba’s dad gets trampled in a stampede and then he meets two whimsical characters,” Thorn recounted. He’s not a big fan of Hakuna Matata in the face of such extreme circumstances. 

“I think you should worry about that.” said Thorn. “I think that’s something to process.”

“Scripts written by generations before us like ‘man up.’ There’s dangerous things to do or pass along,” said Thorn. He recognizes the importance of a good mindset, especially in the dark stretch we’re living through, but has come to understand that grounding exercises only work if you’re using that ground as a foundation for further work. 

“It’s not going to just be breathing exercises, because holy crap, everything is terrible,” said Thorn. “But if we need to get in a good headspace and feel motivated and hopeful, sometimes we have to catch our breath in order to actually make change.”

The most impactful listen on the album is written by Thorn from the perspective of a woman (“An exercise in empathy,” he called it) but sung by The Spine Stealers. “Far Away” is about escaping a bad situation in a worse way. The character meets a man and sees him not for who he is but for the opportunity he represents: “For a fleeting moment/I could find my hope in him./He could take me far away real soon.” She soon finds herself across an ocean and once again dreaming of escape.

“It’s the same stuff because everything you carry with you is there until you face it,” said Thorn. “One of my biggest breakthroughs in therapy in recent years is to sit in discomfort and give it the space and acting with a clear head.” 

Thorn, a man who has dealt with some emotional issues and lives the sort of life that allows him to travel far and frequently, thinks the notion that we just need to find greener grass is flawed.

“It’s less escaping and more confronting,” said Thorn. “I don’t think it’s possible to just run away.” 

When it comes to the multitude of problems facing the world right now, it may literally be impossible to run away from it all. Not even the would-be trillionaire crowd has built a rocket to Mars yet, and even that would feel isolating. The solution Thorn offers is on the opposite end of the coolness spectrum. “In a world full of anger/I’ll bear a grin,” he sings.

“To be able to find a smile is really a gift,” Thorn said. “I’m able to find that joy and that’s really special.”

That joy doesn’t come from being told to feel joy. Sometimes it’s the result of dark humor at the expense of a Disney classic. Sometimes it’s the result of accidentally terrifying an old woman while dressed as a clown on the railroad tracks in an effort to shoot an album cover. Sometimes it’s even less sexy than that.

“I love you so,” Thorn repeats nine times at the end of his album. If he has to say it that many times for it to sink in, so be it. It seems more effective at helping Thorn smile than any folk wisdom about needing to do so.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Ross Thorn and the songs we discussed, starting with the title track, which may be the type of talk we all need to give ourselves. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://rossthornmusic.com for more.

It’s not a coincidence that Kate Vargas uses the word ‘vintage’ in the first sentence of her glittering new album Golden Hour In The House Of Lugosi. There’s a punch and pizzaz to her sound that screams of yesteryear while her lyrics are modern, subversive and intelligent. Her emotional performances, each suited to the subject matter of the song, make each of these energetic character studies all the better. 

“Nothing Turns My Lock” exemplifies the bold energy of this album. The imagery is quite explicitly sexual, though that may be nothing new for jazz.

“There are some old jazz singers who go really far,” Vargas explained. “They just didn’t necessarily make the albums. Definitely will make you blush.”

The increasingly liberated character explores her identity and sets her boundaries. Her relationship is open, but it’s committed. It’s just that one person can’t quite satisfy every need she has. 

“We have this idea that our partner should be everything,” Vargas said. “I think it’s unrealistic and unfair.”

The lyrics throughout the album are significantly more modern than the sound. “Nothing Turns My Lock” was perhaps the most conscious application of that effect. Vargas described the song writing session as looking to push new bounds.

“We all grew up playing jazz music,” said Vargas. “We were talking about lyrical themes in those standards and how [they haven’t been] updated for current times. They tend to be romantic and heterosexual and monogamous. We felt like it needed an update.”

The best song on the album, and one of the best so far this year, is “I Once Was A Contender.” Vargas inhabits someone who thought she could’ve made something of her life. Instead she’s dealing with depression and madness. Much like the character feels she could’ve made it as a big screen actress, Vargas gives an Oscar worthy performance selling the mood. The questions of identity and expectations are the theme Vargas constructed the album around. Here, she feels sympathy for a character who doesn’t recognize her current worth.

“What I want for her is to realize that her value is great whether she’s on the big screen or whether she’s in small town New Mexico and never left,” said Vargas. 

“Serrated Knife” shows the extent to which Vargas can create a mood. The music changes tempos. Her vocals are blunt and frustrated when they need to be. In describing the difficulties of cohabiting, she figures out that her complaints might not be all that well founded. 

“Inevitably I’ll realize that I’m the problem,” Vargas said of her real life. “I will say I’m not an easy person to live with.”

The choice of weapon here is crucial. Serrated knives don’t exactly slice through cleanly.

“It is a very specific kind of knife,” said Vargas. “It’s really sharp in most parts, but over time it’s something you saw with.[In a relationship] you can have those beautiful moments of total elation and have these aspects grinding away.”

The choice of using legendary horror actor Bela Lugosi’s name in the title of the album feels random at first, but he winds up representing the sort of exploration of identity that each song represents.

“Talk about being put into a role,” Vargas said of the actor famous for playing Dracula and other early film icons. 

For her part, Vargas does not feel type cast. 

“I definitely have never felt restricted in my creative output by anyone outside of myself and I think that’s very important,” said Vargas. “For us to be able to express all aspects of ourselves is to be able to hold all parts of ourselves.”  

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Kate Vargas and the songs we discussed, starting with “I Once Was A Contender,” which is a dynamic portrait of someone who is quite stuck. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Tuesday at 12pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://katevargas.com for more.

Most people would have to agree that American society is going through a major upheaval at the moment. That started Lael Neale asking questions and she hasn’t stopped at recent history. “It’s just a little lonely/without the ground below me,” she sings on Tell Me How To Be Here, one of several tracks on the album that sound like a surreal lullaby and pack a tremendous lyrical punch.

“We are often born into sterile hospitals and taken from our moms and have things injected into us. It’s a crazy way to come into the world,” Neale said when we spoke. “I see society as insane now and completely unnatural.”

Los Angeles exemplified her disconnect from the modern world. The sights are emotional and the sounds cause sensory overload. When she lists features of modern society on “All Good Things Will Come To Pass,” she intentionally includes symbols of inequality and things we really don’t need. The music and pace intensify as she reveals the damage we’ve done to each other and the planet may be more lasting than the things we intentionally created.

“You’re always faced with some kind of sadness or pain or disturbance,” said Neale, describing “constant human activity that’s impinging on our mental space.”

Social media means fewer chances to escape from the suffering she observed on the city streets. Left wing feeds regularly display images of Gaza while those on the right focus on crimes committed in cities or by immigrants. In this particularly unpleasant moment it seems the whole spectrum is sharing conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein. The pain is everywhere.

“Either people are in denial of that, or are hyper focusing on it and letting it rule and destroy their lives,” Neale said. “It’s a strange time to be navigating all of these things.”

The notion that we look to others for instructions is difficult for Neale to grasp. She’s a fierce individualist who sees schools as often crushing something vital in young people. At the same time, she asks Google for advice.

“I’m often looking to other people and outsourcing my own power because I don’t want to go through the trouble of knowing how to be in the world,” said Neale.

She’s fairly optimistic about the future of individualism, though not without acknowledging some worries.

“Arguably we’re the most free we’ve ever been now. There have been way more authoritarian times in human history. Maybe we’re heading more in the direction of individualism,” Neale said, hopeful that recent policy changes are not long lasting. “I think it’s a reaction to progress. You take a bunch of steps forward and the pendulum swings back.”

The conflict between the way things should be and the way things are is personified as a rebellious human teen wrecking the house while God isn’t watching.

“We are smarter. We have a better idea,” Neale said humans act like they believe. She disagrees. “We’ve completely gone off the rails. Are things going to line up or are we just going to go down that path of self destruction?” 

On “All Is Never Lost,” Neale argues that we still have a chance to get right with nature. “There’s still a light inside of us,” she sings, describing modern conveniences as having a cost, or “the weight of what we want.”

Neale credits producer and instrumentalist Guy Blakeslee with the discordant nature of many of her songs. She says his input has helped her overcome a major insecurity about sounding too sweet on songs about serious topics.

“He brings a counterbalance to something that could be more sweet and lulling,” said Neale. “I appreciate that, I feel like the songs need a riptide to pull it back in.”

Altogether Stranger ends with “There From Here,” a song set in an airport. Neale describes a surreal experience of duty free liquor and portals and security checks, but also a hope of moving on. Despite her lyrics, she revealed she’s a fan of most aspects of the airport.

“I like people watching and eavesdropping on people’s conversations. You’re always facing your own mortality when you get in a giant metal thing that’s flying through the sky. I sometimes think that makes people nicer to each other at the airport,” said Neale, adding that the scent of the perfume sales counter is a bit nightmarish. “It’s a perfect microcosm of our society. All the goodness in people and blatant capitalism and the authoritarianism of the airport attendees.” 

Neale’s own story of discomfort with the city ends with a trip to the airport. She left LA for her family’s farm in Virginia. 

“For me the most medicinal thing has been being in nature and being much more in control of what I’ve been taking in every day,” said Neale.

The airport is an unexpectedly profound symbol as well. It’s not always easy to change your location or your frame of mind. There are people acting as metaphorical security preventing you from moving forward and challenges at least as daunting as the shops with perfume.

“I’m constantly trying to move from one state of being to another and having this kind of angst propelling me,” Neale said. “But you can’t get a positive place from a state of mind of depression or anxiety. You have to step into the there that you want to go to before you get there.” 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Lael Neale and the songs we discussed, starting with Tell Me How To Be Here, which sadly only partially mocks the notion of asking for advice on how to live from strangers on the internet. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Tuesday at 12pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.subpop.com/artists/lael_neale for more.

Photo by Seven Ruck