To bring this to life, King Ropes offer a sound to match the landscape. One where beauty and harshness sit side by side, and imperfections are just part of the rustic charm. Whether that be the bright and buoyant opener ‘Two Shoes’ or the brooding ‘Radio Jane’ which flickers with an edge of what might be sultry romance or latent violence. ‘Way Too High’ follows with a far smoother, languid flow, though beneath the lazy haze lies a simmering unease. As though, true to the title, the narrator is finding themselves overtaken by a sense of deepening unreality, peculiarities bleeding into the everyday, the sense nothing is quite what it seems.

It is this balance between the ordinary and the extraordinary that marks Idaho, just as it has the other records in the King Ropes oeuvre, and represents that elusive Spirit of The West. The upending combination of familiarity and alienation that comes with living in the middle of nowhere, where isolation is both a confine and a wide-open space. Sun-baked, unrefined, a world within a world. Something as evident in the laconic rhythm of songs like ‘Broken Cup’ and ‘Ride In Your Car’ as it is spacious wonder of ‘International Shortwave’ or the sleek mischievousness of ‘Succulent Thief’, not to mention ‘Live Like an Animal’ with its mean swagger and bite. A song in which sardonic humour meets something primal to the point where you are never quite sure what its next move might be.

Idaho is out now via Big and Just Little and available from the usual places.

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Latest single ‘In the weeds’ continues this process. Nattrass provides vocals, guitar, bass, keys, synthesizers and percussion, and is joined by Evan House (drums), Kyle Musselwhite (pedal steel) and Elyse Lankford (vocals), as well as additional production from House and Alex Heubel. The track finds Drench Fries at its most vivid and enveloping. A song once again wrapped in wistful nostalgia though  certainly not rooted to the spot. Something of a sonic road trip fuelled by yearning, as though a movement into the future is driven only by the unshakeable desire to recapture days now gone.

It’s rainin’ so hard I can barely see
but “if its good for the grass, then its good for me”
I tell myself
bitterly
I’m a vine tangled up in a thousand weeds
I’ll spend a lifetime lookin’ for that golden tree
I know it’s there
waiting for me

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The choice to adopt his own name for his new record is a product of the maturation and evolution that every artist, especially those that start young, naturally work through. Hip Hatchet was plucked haphazardly from a novel by a nineteen-year-old Bronchtein, and after a decade the name began to feel less and less meaningful. “As I got older and more comfortable in my own skin,” Bronchtein explains, “the moniker felt like something I was hiding behind rather than embracing. It feels more honest to continue putting out music under my own name than trying to conform to some image of what an American songwriter should be.”

Which is to say, the arbitrary Hip Hatchet began to feel like something of a folk trope, an attempt to fit within the Americana genre that became an empty facsimile. For some, a band name is just a band name, but for an artist who plies his trade with a sense of sincerity and authenticity, the false meaning of Hip Hatchet just wouldn’t do. The solution was easy—how better to reclaim a sense of authenticity than using one’s own name? “The name contains multitudes,” Bronchtein says. “My first name is from my mother’s Quebecois (French-Canadian) side. My last name is from my father’s side, of Russian Jewish Heritage.” Philippe Bronchtein is a history.

Which is to say, Me and the Moon signals not some drastic change of direction, but rather a full embrace of the styles and nuances that make Bronchtein’s music his own. The themes of travel and longing and the distance of home were always Hip Hatchet staples, and again this record is centred on the compulsion to move and the fear and loneliness that might follow. ‘It’ll Do’ and ‘Home Again’ explore the discrepancy between feelings when away and at home, Bronchtein pining for home on the road and itching to move when off it, the traditional benefits of home feeling empty, lacking their imagined importance, like wistful delusions born of too many nights driving alone.

However, there is doubt too about the value of the miles he has so far clocked, questions as to what exactly he has to show for such an endeavour. Therefore, the road he desires to get back on might be a metaphorical one, the urge to move on not necessarily a longing for the next town or tour, but a new period of life.

The entire record could be viewed as the slow realisation of this, the ubiquitous wistful tone the product of Bronchtein letting a great part of himself go, Hip Hatchet and all that came with it now separate, his identity no longer but fond memories, remembered in a dusky light. ‘Kitchen Window’ and ‘Joy of Repetition’ seem preoccupied by this, a pervasive sense of loss creeping into all things, as though the experiences are slipping through his fingers even as they are unfolding.

“I feel like a memory, one that can’t brave the fires of time and stone”

Perhaps the most upbeat track on the record, ‘Ginger Tea and Wine’ finds Bronchtein an ocean away from home and regretting those he left behind. ‘I’m a Runner’ is similarly troubled, born of the loneliness of the rootless life, where moving forward is merely the most efficient way of not looking back. The title track too finds Bronchtein in a life difficult and rarely comfortable, and the motivation behind the constant movement begins to feel like a lie he has repeated into certainty. Though, the fact that Bronchtein is still going suggests that maybe some people are just cut out for this. For journeys with no clear end. For journeys as the end.

I’m drinking for free in a new town each night”
with my sleeves both rolled up, man this is the life.

When the gasoline’s cheaper but I’m barely alive
after ten thousand miles, man this is the life.

But the trees here ain’t green and a truck’s not a home.
I keep telling myself, this is the life I chose”

Me and the Moon is out now and you can buy it from the Philippe Bronchtein webstore.

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But anyway, You Cant Go Back If There Is Nothing To Go Back To is the band’s eleventh record (at least by my count). They recently put out a trailer for the release, which hints at some rather atmospheric Americana, as well as the lead track ‘Wake Up Ray’. Have a look/listen below:

You Cant Go Back If There Is Nothing To Go Back To is set for release on the 4th March 2016 via Décor Records​. The Free came out last year on Faber & Faber and is available from all good book shops.

The post Richmond Fontaine announce new album, You Cant Go Back If There Is Nothing To Go Back To appeared first on Various Small Flames.

In a recent email, Furr stated that he wants to share the album “in an effort to tell my story and open up a space for others to share theirs.” “I have found some healing in making Trails & Traces,“ said Furr, “and I want to share this beautiful space music creates with others… using music to open up space between strangers and allow them to connect with one another.”

It is an admirable intention, and one which seems embedded within all of the most rewarding and valuable art, be it music or literature or whatever else. When dealing with subject matter such as the death of a loved one, there is a real (and understandable) danger of things becoming overly dark and despondent. What Furr describes above, and what comes through on the album, is about trying to do more than that. It’s about making something meaningful, something cathartic/therapeutic for the artist, but also comforting/useful for the listeners. Trails & Traces is poignant but never morose, putting love over regret and allowing hope to be the dominant emotion. As Furr explains:

“I do not want cancer to be the end of Christina’s story. She left behind a tradition of joy, wonder, and love that has inspired so many of us here in Ft Worth. And to me, her husband, she left behind an ache that is only satisfied with song. These songs are part of her legacy that continues to inspire us and to connect each other with love.”

The album is ten tracks of folk/Americana goodness. Starting off with the country-tinged foot-tappers ‘Branches’ and ‘Lines’, it becomes more intimate by ‘Drift Away’ and ‘Blake’s Song’, and morphs into something more rocky by the midway point. ‘Falling Stars’ is the leading track, a song which starts off relatively slow and builds to a loud crescendo that encapsulates his intense emotions over the loss of his wife. “Now you’re a song on my dry lips,” Furr sings, “now your the beat that’s breaking my heart. You’ve become the air in my heavy lungs. Won’t you stay so we’ll never be apart?” You can watch the video below.

Trails & Traces is due to be released on the 14th September.

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