We last wrote about Creekbed Carter Hogan back in 2024, when their self-titled album Creekbed Carter introduced what we described as an “unwavering style of folk” in all of its singular glory. “The record sees the trans artist both catalogue the past and confront the present,” we continued, “with Hogan searching for ways to survive and find community in a society which too often seems to have been built to prevent such endeavours.” Importantly, the album also signalled a pivot away from the more reserved tone of its predecessor Good St Riddance, finding the strength and clarity to say what needed to be said precisely, unapologetically and, ultimately, with a hard-won compassion.
Now Creekbed Carter Hogan is set to return with Peasants Revolt, a brand new full-length via Gar Hole Records which builds upon these beginnings to conjure their most ambitious and stylistically diverse release to date. Written within the span of an array of transitions, which saw Hogan undergoing gender affirming treatment and living/moving between the North and South while the entire world seemed to be lurching towards something newly frightening, the record embraces multiplicity as a kind of remedy. As though to refuse to be reduced to any one thing is to stand in opposition to the central tenets of capitalism and imperialism. To move beyond the confines of individual isolation and into a teeming world, and indeed a teeming history, full of radical potential.
Hence Peasants Revolt contains Medieval ballads and Appalachian strike songs, finds inspiration in everything from the Haitian Revolution to Ethiopian jazz. And, crucially, is far more than a solo record. The almost overwhelming community of collaborators includes Britton Beisenherz, Lindsey Verrill and Jeff Johnston (Little Mazarn), Carolina Chauffe (Hemlock), Beth Chrisman (Lost Patterns, Missy Beth and the Morning Afters, Willi Carlisle, James Hand), Nora Predey, Zack Wiggs, Sarah Schultz (Sun June), Hunter Prueger (Middle Sattre), Gabriela Torres, Jude Brothers and Hot Dog Choir. “Building such a rich world takes artists who understand music isn’t just ornamental,” as the album notes put it, “but fundamental to survival.”
To set the tone before the album’s release this summer, Creekbed Carter Hogan has shared the lead single, ‘Cutbank of Cleves’. Described by the label as “a rollicking, medieval-Americana fable sung by a jester in the halls of a dying empire,” the track embodies the spirit which runs through the entirity of Peasants Revolt. The sense that, though the world is falling all around, there has never been a better time to come to together. To create, to dance, to scheme, to fight. To refute those forces which have come to shape the dismal present, and to remember, in spite of everything, to still make space to live.
Watch the video by by Lexi Kiecker below:
Peasants Revolt will be released on the 24th July via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it from the Creekbed Carter Hogan Bandcamp page.
Album artwork by Jammy Violet