It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from longtime WTD fav Tyler Butler. We last covered the Edmonton native almost exactly a year ago when he released the self-titled release with his band Tyler Butler and his Handsome Friends. We’re excited then, to learn that Tyler had released a short collection of demos on his Bandcamp page. Not new per se, the songs were recorded at home back in 2014, and all share a thematic link. As Butler puts it, “Each song tells the story of a dream-haunted night: premonitions, apparitions and transformations.”
‘Wandering Man’ is a lonely travelling song in the tradition of the greats, Butler’s signature delicate vocals delivering lines that tell of a world-weary nomad. The verses switch perspective between the wanderer, who traverses the Rockies and the great northern pines, and his darling left behind.
“How many roads have you gone down?
How many times have you come through this town?
I will not grow lonely and old by myself
I will not be the woman of a wandering man”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2102517791 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=908400705]
‘The Stranger’ is another sparse folk song, the guitar so gentle it sounds almost a capella in parts. The narrator tells the story of his beloved Nancy, and his dreams of a stranger “with the devil in his eyes”. Its safe to say the story isn’t a happy one, thick with the same cruel morality of Southern Gothic literature.
‘North Country Girl’ is another song about a traveller and a lover up North, before closer ‘Hunting Dog Night’ sounds like the soundtrack to a hard and lonely existence in the vein of McCarthy’s Suttree.
“Well you don’t meet kindly women
when you’re living in the bars
sleeping through the morning
in the front seat of your car
woke up from my slumber,
found her knocking on my door
I was half asleep again”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2102517791 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=138376807]
You can get Four Dreams Demos for a single Canadian dollar (or more) from the Tyler Butler Bandcamp page.