People, let’s us talk about an album. Bonnie Prince Billy has made a number of them, and heard a bunch more in his time of knowing. He’s found them hewn from moments, admired them as small and accountable – the communication of music in emotion, release and catharsis, to edify, to entertain, in two sides and less than an hour.
“Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” presents simply – an album made as it was meant to be heard, in a room. The sound of people together – a sound we’d so recently feared that we’d lost – playing, communing, strings and wood and keys and voices singing. “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” presents simply, and is sung along easily and happily with in time But –is it family portrait or fairy tale? How does it think the world was made, and will end?
“Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You” was recorded in Louisville by Nick Roeder, featuring Sara Louise Callaway on violin, Kendall Carter on keys, Elisabeth Fuchsia on viola and violin, Dave Howard on Mandolin, Drew Miller on saxophone and Dane Waters’ voice. The presence of so many local players and music educators in the band lends not only to a flow of moments so fluidly encompassing of a wide range of music’s from classical to Japanese acid folk and elsewhere, but perhaps even more importantly, to the sense of community, heredity and the triumph of inheritance that is the marrow and life blood of this music.
“Bananas” is from “Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You,” available on LP/CS/CD/Digital from Drag City on August 11th, 2023.
The Fat Angel Sings 