Hudson Freeman drew my eye toward the end of last year after a Pitchfork alumni-turned-producer Nick Sylvester spotlighted him in a Substack piece titled “This is the song I shared most last year.” Sylvester spoke of a “demo” version of Freeman’s track “If You Know Me” that exploded on Instagram, though it feels more like a lo-fi live performance clip filmed in a cornfield in southern Indiana. “His guitar sits up high on the neck, and you can see the bottom three strings visibly tremble when he strikes them—perhaps due to some esoteric tuning, but either way it completes the rural, hillbilly mood,” Sylvester wrote.
The guitar work is commanding — virtuosic in a raw, folksy fashion — and yes, the strings are tuned so slack that they seem to summon ancient frequencies. As for Freeman’s vocals, word has it some listeners dubbed the performance “country Nirvana.” It’s easy to understand why this hypnotic rendition of the song took hold. Sylvester spotted it on IG, yet the YouTube upload has 134,000 views. Add one more view here:
Then, in February, Ryan Dombal profiled Freeman for Hearing Things, calling him “the Indie-Rock Philosopher Who Happened to Go Viral.” Veteran writers who contributed to Pitchfork two decades ago can’t seem to get enough of this kid! A notable admirer: John Mayer, who posted footage of himself playing the “If You Know Me” riff:
Freeman, according to Dombal’s piece, is the son of evangelical Christian missionaries who moved with his family from the Dallas suburbs to the Kingdom of Eswatini when he was 13, before “falling out of evangelicalism and finding his own path to faith.” Now he’s out here delivering scrappy, blustery, folk-tinged indie rock tunes like “I-40,” the single he released last month on his new label home Mom+Pop. It channels a bit of Sufjan Stevens territory from the Hotline TNT/Horse Jumper Of Love period. I’m into it.
Earlier this week he announced a new full-length, Doom Country, the follow‑up to last year’s Is A Folk Artist. The release is coming soon, a mere five weeks away, and it features Freeman’s wife, the poet Sophie Brown, on the cover—dressed in overalls and standing among cows. The new single “Fell Ass Backwards” functions essentially as a duet with Brown, who provides harmonies throughout and stars in director Aidan Nolan’s video. Unlike Freeman, she isn’t sporting a bandaged head in the visuals.
“Fell ass backwards into God’s strange light,” they sing. “Stole his secret password, broke into his mind / Left back, rapture, slipped through holy skies / Thought we’d get there faster, tried to cut the line.” The track is a sharp slice of noisy, glittering, post-Alex G indie rock, and you can sample it below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Left Behind”
02 “I-40”
03 “Texas in Flaming Tongues”
04 “Turning Green”
05 “Wrong Side”
06 “Doom Country”
07 “Fell Ass Backwards”
08 “Celebration City”
09 “10.08.22”
10 “Western”
11 “Deus Ex Machina”
TOUR DATES:
10/05 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
10/06 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
10/16 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle *
10/17 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed *
10/18 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theater and Ballroom *
10/20 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE *
10/21 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem *
10/23 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met *
10/24 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner *
10/26 – Columbus, OH @ Kemba Live! *
11/06 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom – RECORD RELEASE SHOW
02/11 – Milan, IT @ Arci Belleza
02/14 – Paris, FR @ Les Étoiles
02/15 – Utrecht, NL @ De Helling
02/16 – Cologne, DE @ Yard Club
02/18 – Copenhagen, DK @ Ideal Bar
02/19 – Berlin, DE @ Hole44
02/20 – Groningen, NL @ Vera
02/21 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique – Rotonde
02/23 – London, UK @ Earth Theatre
02/24 – Brighton, UK @ Komedia
02/25 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
02/26 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
02/27 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
03/01 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tut’s
03/02 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
03/03 – Belfast, UK @ Ulster Sports Club
Doom Country is out 11/6 on Mom+Pop. Pre-order it here.
