Royal Oakie also co-released Half Stack‘s Sitting Pretty alongside Forged Artifacts, an album which saw the Bay Area outfit evolve their sound in exciting new directions. “The record loosens its grip on the country aesthetic and in doing so allows all sorts of stylistic directions to show themselves,” as we put it last summer. “Psych rock, power pop, even a dose of honky tonk, each song opens up a new avenue to explore. But this unpredictability feels less like a band experimenting with possibilities as one finally able to embrace their fuller selves. The dusty cowboy aesthetic remains, but there’s more to Half Stack than that. Now they’re allowing their true spirit to shine through.”

To celebrate the year, Royal Oakie Records has released Greatest Hits of 2023, a compilation which collects the “fan favorites and deep cuts” from across their roster. All of the prior mentioned acts feature, as do Jeff Moller, Michael James Tapscott, Well Well Well, Whiskerman, Go By Ocean and Bard’s Flying Vessel. Listeners unfamiliar with the label can use this as the perfect primer, but equally, just as with Orindal Records’ recent compilation Powerful Forces Beyond Our Understanding, those already acquainted can come to appreciate the label more fully, with the chance to hear their artists back to back allowing fans to find the links and resonances between otherwise disparate projects.

Greatest Hits of 2023 is out now and available from the Royal Oakie Records Bandcamp page.

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Sitting Pretty, the new Half Stack album set for release this autumn, feels like an embrace of these wider influences. A joint release by Forged Artifacts and Royal Oakie Records, with a physical UK/EU release a month later with Cargo Collective, the record loosens its grip on the country aesthetic and in doing so allows all sorts of stylistic directions to show themselves. Psych rock, power pop, even a dose of honky tonk, each song opens up a new avenue to explore. But this unpredictability feels less like a band experimenting with possibilities as one finally able to embrace their fuller selves. The dusty cowboy aesthetic remains, but there’s more to Half Stack than that. Now they’re allowing their true spirit to shine through. 

Latest single ‘Burnt’ feels like a great entry point into this new stage of Half Stack. A song that blurs the line between slacker attitude and warm reflection, facing up to the twin threats of spreading yourself too thinly and the perpetual slipping away of time. “This track is about indecision and burnout and how I kind of do these things to myself,” Kegler explains. “I finished writing the words during a time of isolation while recovering from an injury that left me immobile for a while. I think I was examining my future and friendships and questioning some of that stuff.” But true to the Half Stack spirit, such contemplations are leavened with a wry humour too, the lightly self-deprecating tone buoying the track against any sense of anhedonia or self-pity. 

I’ve got a life to live but it makes no sense
I’m just burning the candle at both ends
I’ve got a life to live but its only for my friends
I’ll keep burning the candle at both ends

Sitting Pretty is out on the 6th October via Forged Artifacts and Royal Oakie Records and you can pre-order it now from the Half Stack Bandcamp page.

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