Will Stratton s music often goes beyond words.
Folk-hewn artistry that touches on pure feeling, his work is reminiscent of some absolute greats - Bert Jansch or Michael Chapman, for example - but always feels resolutely individual.
New album The Changing Wilderness is another gift from the songwriter, and it lands tomorrow - May 7th - through Bella Union.
We re able to share one final preview, with Fate s Ghost finding Will Stratton linking with a close friend, and a special guest.
Gilded musicality that seems to appear from the aether, Will Stratton s work seems to unhook itself from the everyday to drift into realms of imagination.
7 May 2021
One of the wonderful things about discovering the music of Will Stratton is that it’s such a vast world within a handful of albums, and diving into it can be a thrilling and multifaceted experience. There is the eloquent, off-kilter arrangements of songs like “Colt New Marine”. The rustic, acoustic fingerpicking in “Helmet Pine Singer” is reminiscent of 1970s British folk guitarists. The warm, engaging shuffle of “Manzanita” sounds like a long-lost Josh Ritter single. With a new album,
The Changing Wilderness, around the corner, Stratton adds another collection of songs to his repertoire, ones that blend in rather seamlessly with the rest of his work but are also undeniably tied into the world climate of the last few years.
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Good Guess, the second album of original songs from Brooklyn singer-songwriter Winston C.W., surveys the varied topography of human memory, finding hills and valleys in territory that feels both familiar and foreign. A song might arrive through rose-tinted glass, or as a self-critical reflection that casts the past in a single hue. But whatever the initial observation, it paves the way for more nuanced understanding, shedding light on previously overlooked intricacies of relationships both platonic and romanticâthough, by the time allâs been said and sung, even these conclusions feel debatable.
This even-handed analysis is old hat for Cook-Wilson, who, as the frontman of New York sophisti-pop quartet Office Culture, detailed the highs and lows of city living on 2019âs