Having made his name as the lead figure of indie folk outfit Vandaveer, Louisville songwriter Mark Charles has taken to recording under his own name since the project wound down, though has worked at his own pace amid the demands of fatherhood and everything else recent years have brought. “I don’t really follow a disciplined songwriting process,” he explains. “My relationship with the capital M ‘Muse’ isn’t very well-defined.” But the firebreak of 2020 allowed some respite from over ten years of recording and touring, and the space allowed Charles to recalibrate his relationship to music and its place among the other facets of his life.
Though Mark Charles’s forthcoming solo debut record Calamity Strikes was in the works prior to this period, it seems fitting it is being released within this new context, and the various obstacles in its path only add credence to the title. A reminder that life is both miraculous and painful, the only certainty its wild unpredictability and our ability to choose how we act within it. “We are so profoundly, incomprehensibly lucky to be alive, and yet, it can be nightmarishly complicated to get on with the actual act of living,” as Charles puts it. “If we can connect through creative expression and find common purpose through shared experiences, I think that’s a net positive.”
With its fresh rhythms and earnest delivery, latest single ‘Creature Comforts’ is an ideal introduction to the release’s spirit. A Petty-esque country rock song about the suffocating deluge of information we face every day, and our attempts to drag ourselves to drier ground. “I’m growing tired of my creature comforts,” Charles sings, “thumbing my way to oblivion / think it might be time for course correction.” Of course, desire to change is not change itself, and the song captures the strange weariness that is digital living. The wish to leave it all behind matched by the easy fall back into its arms.
Mark Charles also took to La La Land for a live session performance of previous single ‘Different Names’, and you can check out the video filmed and edited by Chris Witzke below:
Calamity Strikes is out on the 7th October and you can pre-order it now.