Back in July, we previewed One More Lonesome Cowboy Song, the new album from Jonathan Something (AKA Connecticut singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Searles) forthcoming via High Shelter. The record represents something of a return for Searles, who, having won acclaim through the 2010s and early 2020s, grew increasingly jaded with the constraints of the music industry, to the point where the act of making music itself became tainted. “I was finding it hard to identify with being an artist anymore,” as Searles explained. “It didn’t bring me the same joy or comfort it used to, and I found that the only way for me to really enjoy music again was to stop making it.” But make no mistake, the path to the album was far from a smooth or easy experience, with even the act of sitting at the piano causing anxiety at first, though Searles grasped the nettle in order to move through the feelings. “Eventually, I realized that I needed to turn it into something useful,” he continues. “I needed to use it as a catalyst to start thinking more seriously about spirituality and growth and the changes I needed to make in my life. And that journey became [new album] One More Lonesome Cowboy Song.”
After the suitably existential, transformative lead single ‘Country Rose’, Jonathan Something has now shared latest track ‘Gasoline’ to further build anticipation for the release. A prime example of how One More Lonesome Cowboy Song lives up to its name, the track manages to evoke both the intimacy of personal experience and something far larger, bringing in the melancholy of the archtypal wanderer in search of meaning. Katie Martucci (bass) and Dylan McKinstry (drums) join to flesh out the sound, and the result is relatively understated yet charged with real feeling, driven by a persistent yearning for something more. Watch a live version recorded at Greenpoint Recording Collective with Dogstar Films below:
One More Lonesome Cowboy Song will be released on the 16th October via High Shelter. ‘Gasoline’ is available from this usual places.