It’s tempting for fans to preserve their favourite artists in aspic. Although Bonnie “Prince” Billy (AKA Will Oldham) has made all sorts of records, he remains most closely associated with his earliest parched, folk-adjacent outings that delved obliquely into the bleaker aspects of human nature.
The Purple Bird, by contrast, was made in Nashville – the home of country music – with exalted session musicians and a producer, David “Ferg” Ferguson, who Oldham first met while the late Johnny Cash was recording a cover of Oldham’s classic track, I See a Darkness. It’s a country record, with all the harmonies, musicianship and hangdog relationship blues (Tonight With the Dogs I’m Sleeping) that implies. Fiddles feature, electric guitar solos ring out. Watercourses, dust and the state of the nation inspire the lyrics. Although death features, and the water is not what it was (Downstream), Oldham often advises the listener to seize the day and go skinny dipping in the creek; to build community.
But this is a Nashville record made by Oldham, still an insightful and mischievous operator. Alongside rueful singalongs like Boise, Idaho are tracks such as Guns Are for Cowards. “Who will you shoot in the face?” sings Oldham, with impish oompah. “Who will you shoot in the back?”
