Shane Butler has long contributed to a wide array of compelling music across the neo-psychedelic, folk, pop, and rock scenes through his work with Quilt and Olden Yolk. With both groups currently in hiatus, he ventures out on his own, releasing his first solo record, Heavy Debt, next month. Last month he unveiled the lead single “Ringfinger,” and now another track is making its way into listeners’ ears.
Even as the arrangement offers lively touches of percussion and woodwinds, “Devotee” settles into the more intimate, pastoral facet of Butler’s body of work. Born in New York City and raised in a spiritual community in upstate New York, and later near Mumbai, India, the track sees Butler contemplating the life his mother led and the lives she imagined for herself but never lived.
“My mother left home at 18 after she met a spiritual teacher and moved into a commune, a place she inhabited for more than 25 years,” Butler explains. “That’s where I grew up. It was a wonderful environment for us, yet I’ve always wondered what her life would have looked like if she’d followed a path more like that of her peers; would she have been listening to something like Double Nickels On The Dime at 25 and living a radically different life?”
Listen to “Devotee” below.
TOUR DATES:
12/03 – New York, NY @ Public Records (w/ Silk Fence)
12/04 – Boston, MA @ The Loft Somerville
12/05 – Philadelphia, PA @ Abbysinia
12/16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon (w/ Mary Lattimore)
01/22 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas (w/ Star Moles, Sam & Louise Sullivan)
Heavy Debt is out 12/4 via Peal Music. Pre-order it here.
