The delicate songwriter invites us to explore his beloved Midwest through an authentic, enduringly charming folk-rock.
“Welcome to the badlands”, intones Kevin Morby, inviting listeners to contemplate the endless plains of his cherished Midwest. Six years after Sundowner and four years after the sublime This Is a Photograph, the Kansas City-born musician continues his panorama of deep and contemporary America with Little Wide Open. True to folk-rock, with its honest, intimate texture, Kevin Morby tells the story of his territory.
“There is something instinctively musical about the Midwest: cicadas singing in the trees, a passing train, a tornado siren that blares… Before adding: if you listen, there are these almost threatening sounds that take shape sous le ciel immense. Sa laideur et sa beauté, et comment les deux fonctionnent ensemble, simultanément.”
Among the guests, Justin Vernon or Lucinda Williams
In this new chapter, as personal as it is, Kevin Morby gently escapes a nostalgic mood that ran as a subtle thread through his previous records. In the production, Aaron Dessner, co-founder of The National, gives the album weight. The guests multiply, from the virtuosic guitarist Meg Duffy to the iconic Lucinda Williams, including musicians such as Tom Moth, Andrew Barr, Justin Vernon, or Katie Gavin.
While preserving the freedom of the American singer, his signature, and his penchant for spare songs (Die Young, Javelin), and giving him time to shape the present (Natural Disaster) as the sun grazes the horizon.
Little Wide Open (Dead Oceans/Modulor). Out on May 15. Live at Paris’s Salle Pleyel on July 6.
