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The first sang on Kevin Morby’s eighth studio album Badlands. It refers to the unforgiving landscape of the American midwest and also comes with a history of pop culture: the title of Terrence Malick’s 1973 neo-noir horror film unreservedly due to the murder of Charles Starkweather; an ominous song from Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town that depicts a frustrated worker “crushing my guts out” in an empty town. An unforgiving place, violence caused by dirty rage, frustration: the audience is encouraged to hear a song in which Morby, who was raised between the fields of Missouri and the suburbs of Kansas City, shows a vivid picture of America where he comes from. But Badlands is not straightforward. It is driven by big drums, twisted, slightly distorted, but the music played is surprisingly stable: a clean, clear guitar plays gently, Morby’s voice has a conversational tone, there is a sweet voice. On the one hand, the text talks about “the great disaster that we call home”, but on the other it gives the idea that “heaven is a place on Earth under a golden sky”. He concluded with the words, “I can’t tell if I’m in heaven or hell.”
It sets the tone for an album that, in a good way, can’t quite live up to its premise, creating several gray areas. Morby is hard at work on the strange push by hometown, comforting familiarity and fun (“home smells like cinnamon and the sad passing of time”) and fighting the idea that it’s never enough: “When nobody makes a sound but me on this guitar,” as Morby says, the sudden sound of aucktown sounds. But the idea of equivocation enters into everything. On Natural Disaster, Morby can’t decide whether his mood swings are something to do with medication or meditation or natural events, such as floods or hurricanes, that he also needs as fuel to write songs. Die Young looks back on an athletic youth with a sense of dread (“thank God we didn’t die young”) that cannot be overstated in a series of street scenes.
Lyrically, Morby mostly deals in the deep and understated. His background sometimes affects life (2022’s This Is A Picture) and jazz (there’s a surprising amount of sax improvisation on the 2019’s Oh my God), but his roots remain well-crafted in the Americana of artists Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Tom Petty and Leonard Cohen. He’s never sold a ton of albums, or written a hit song that crossed over from Pitchfork’s review to mainstream success, but Little Wide Open’s debut gives an indication of just how respected he is. The National Aaron Dessner, not someone you would think would want to be given high-profile production jobs – his recent CV includes successful albums for Noah Kahan, Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Ed Sheeran – apparently asked to work with him and said he shared Morby’s music “with everyone I’ve ever worked with”.
Contributors include Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon mimicking the storm with his voice and alternative star, Lucinda Williams, delivering a monologue inspired by Springsteen’s take on Lou Reed’s Street Hassle on Natural Disaster, as well as several members of Muna, Sylvan Esso, Florence + Genius and the Machine. All of their efforts bring Morby back to what you might call the core of his voice. There are a few moments that jump – 100,000 builds to a noisy guitar – but for the most part, the main money of Little Wide Open is very interesting: the beautiful release of the song, how the banjo-assisted near the Field Guide for Butterfree gradually from Butterfly to something beautiful. the piano and clarinet motif that runs through Junebug. Filled with songs that take time to break down – the title track and Natural Disaster both last more than seven minutes – this is a song that avoids flashing and instead encourages the audience to stay with it, which is compatible with the uncertainties of his music, his thoughts of someone working on what he is feeling in real time.
Morby has called Little Wide Open “his most vulnerable album”. Indeed, it’s known as the work of a 38-year-old man, about to become a father — and partner Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee — and aided by a doubt that can plague you at that time in life: “Am I a thief?” Javelin wonders. “Am I a man?” But his tone of voice is more universal than that: in a time when it’s worse, it’s a welcome safe place to admit you’re not sure; that things are difficult.
This week Alexis listened
Jordan Rakei – It Doesn’t End (ft Factory Coleoso)
Written and recorded on the same day as Rakei’s first Abbey Road residency, his collaboration with Ezra Collective’s Koleoso is an atmospheric, sweet but heart-driven thriller.
