SON VOLT ‘Electro Melodier’

$25.00 Inc GST

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Description

Singer-guitarist Jay Farrar takes stock on his roots-rock outfit’s gritty 10th album.

“2020 was not quite what Jay Farrar was expecting for the 25th anniversary of Son Volt’s Trace, the groundbreaking debut from the band he started in 1994 after leaving the seminal group Uncle Tupelo, whose No Depression album helped define the alt-country and Americana genre. The group had just finished an Outlaw Country Cruise when the pandemic hit and sent them into their homes on lockdown.  Instead of a triumphant tour marking the illustrious landmark, Farrar was forced indoors by the pandemic, and his Reverie during that time helped define Electro MelodierSon Volt’s 10th studio album. The title, taken from the names of two vintage amplifiers from the late ’40s and early ’50s, also describes the disc’s unique blend of folk, country, blues, soul and rock — an electric troubadour with melodies that hit and stick. Social protest songs like Living in the U.S.A. and The Globe — the former about the promises of a nation gone wrong, the latter referencing the street protests accompanying the Black Lives Matter movement — exist side by side with odes to long-term relationships (specifically his 25-year marriage) in Diamonds and Cigarettes and Lucky Ones.

“I had more time to devote to and concentrate on the writing,” says Farrar about his enforced quarantine. “We were fortunate in that we had just released Union and toured the country, so we were off cycle. It was still a rough year, but as a songwriter, I was able to make the most of it.”