In recent months, Courtney Werner has become tied to a remarkably large slice of the bold, experimental folk music emerging from the American South. The sound artist and fiddler collaborates with Magic Tuber Stringband, Dowsers, and Weirs, which has led me to share a substantial portion of her work over the last year or so. So it’s time for another spotlight!
This week, Werner unveiled her debut solo record Tritium Forests. It’s slated for release on Thrill Jockey in February, continuing her pattern of crossing the boundary between music and her other vocation as an ecologist. Lead single “sierra one whiskey eight,” for example, drew inspiration from field recordings of coyotes, barred owls, and whip-poor-wills captured in what Jeff Tweedy once described as the Bible-black pre-dawn. “I tried to imagine myself as another voice in the soundscape, responding to and communicating with the calls,” Werner explains.
The completed track is haunting and grand, Deliverance-tinged and filtered through Claire Rousay. Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “november seven echo one”
02 “sierra one whiskey eight”
03 “november four echo one”
04 “sierra six whiskey four”
05 “november five echo three”
Tritium Forests is out 2/26 on Thrill Jockey. Pre-order it here.
