Using best defining practices, we like to corral our arts into tidy abstract or narrative cubicles, music included. Listening to Boston-via-Tennessee multi-instrumentalist Joseph Allred’s rich-but-brittle songwriting underscores the many shadings in between those two boxes.
The third Allred LP proper (not including full-length cassettes out on Garden Portal and his own Meliphonic label) is called O Meadowlark, and it will be released on July 5 on Feeding Tube Records.
Allred’s minimalist folk stylings may hum with great grey-zone diversity, but O Meadowlark’s story isn’t linear either. Recorded during a one-night marathon session, O Meadowlark tells a patchwork story of Allred’s character (and sometime alias) Poor Faulkner, who sees ghosts, follows a bird into the forest, and visits an angel who eventually takes him on a vision trip. O Meadowlark ends with the protagonist’s spiritual ascent but divulges nothing about the vision itself, leaving that tale for Allred to finish another time.
Sample the album here — but like most Feeding Tube releases, O Meadowlark is a limited edition (300 copies), so best get on this bird before it flies away forever. Click me to pre-order!
O Meadowlark tracklisting:
Side A:
01. O Meadowlark
02. The Woods in the Morning, and the Angel Descends
03. The Porch at Night
Side B:
01. Mother of Believers
02. The Porch in the Morning, and the Angel Returns
03. The Woods in the Day, and Faulkner Ascends Through the Trees
More about: Joseph Allred
