However dimly we perceive it, we are living through a change of worlds. The one we were born into is slipping away, reshaped and denuded by human action. What remains is the question of what we will carry forward, and how we will refuse to surrender ourselves. Will Oldham’s new album, 'We Are Together Again', feels like an answer. In Oldham’s songs - and in the circle of others gathered beneath the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy - friendship, community, and the stubborn joy of making art with others become a means of persistence. This isn’t a denial of collapse, which would be delusion, but a kind of defiance: remaining fully human, fully joyful, in a world with a diminishing horizon.

'We Are Together Again' was recorded at End of an Ear studios in Louisville, Kentucky. After a brief sojourn in Nashville for 'The Purple Bird' it continues his recent ambition - beginning with 'I Made A Place' and 'Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You' - to make records in Louisville.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A characteristically evocative and soaring suite of brittle barely-folk ballads and beautifully rendered acoustic Americana from one of the greatest singer-songwriters in indie music. Bracingly orchestral and wonderfully hard-hitting lyrically, 'We Are Together Again' is Oldham's finest transmission for some years.

TRACK LISTING

1. Why Is The Lion
2. They Keep Trying To Find You 
3. Strange Trouble
4. Life Is Scary Horses
5. (Everybody's Got A) Friend Named Joe
6. Vietnam Sunshine
7. Hey Little
8. Davey Dead
9. The Children Are Sick
10. Bride Of The Lion

'The Purple Bird' finds Bonnie "Prince" Billy working with a "producer" for only the second time in his illustrious catalogue. This time it's David "Ferg" Ferguson (Johnny Cash, Sturgill Simpson) who guides the songs backed by "the best band you can get in Nashville right now", country singer John Anderson and Bluegrass legend Tim O'Brien. The Purple Bird is simultaneously like and unlike other BPB records. Many of the songs are a product of multiple composers’ voices, making the shape-shifting aspect of the BPB persona more fluid than ever before.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The most widescreen BPB record for some time comes in the form of the soaring, majestic country balladry of 'The Purple Bird'. With nods to classic country and folk as you'd expect, but also full of moments of huge cathartic melodicism and perfectly contrasting minimalism.

TRACK LISTING

1 Turned To Dust (Rolling On)
2. London May
3. Tonight With The Dogs I’m Sleeping
4. Boise, Idaho
5. The Water’s Fine
6. Sometimes It’s Hard To Breathe
7. New Water
8. Guns Are For Cowards
9. Downstream Ft. John Anderson
10. One Of These Days (I’m Gonna Spend The Whole Night With You)
11. Is My Living In Vain?
12. Our Home Ft. Tim O’Brien

When Nathan Salsburg’s daughter was a baby, he often sang her to sleep in a rocking chair. At one point, he remembered a song he had taught himself as a teenager: “The Evidence” by Lungfish, the Maryland band who coined a singular brand of post-punk in the 90s and 00s. Salsburg realized he could play the guitar part with one hand, singing while holding Talya in his other arm. Though the original version of “The Evidence” is only five minutes long, it’s essentially a repetitive mantra, so Salsburg could extend it as long as he wanted–10 minutes, 20 minutes, even an hour. “It was therapeutic and calming and just lovely for me,” he says.

“And it worked on her.” Eventually Nathan and Talya moved on from their ritual, but his lullaby cover stayed in his head. So he proposed to his fellow Louisville collaborators Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham) and Tyler Trotter that they record a version with Salsburg on guitar, Oldham singing, and Trotter adding drum machines and synths. They decided to pair it with a rendition of another Lungfish song, “Hear the Children Sing,” playing each tune for more than enough time to fill two sides of an album. The result is the beguiling Hear the Children Sing the Evidence, an album that displays the strengths and visions of the participants while showcasing how richly powerful Lungfish’s songs are.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hear The Children Sing (19:56)
2. The Evidence (21:08)

Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You – 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. KSWDY 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 musics 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. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though 'Keeping secrets...' is undoubtedly one of BPB's quietest outings in terms of its instrumentation, drawing beauty from a reasonably unadorned mixture of guitar strings and vocals, the depth of feeling and scope of the result is astounding. Heartwarming folky balladry abound, all pulled together with Oldham's unmatched sensitivity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Like It Or Not
2. Behold! Be Held!
3. Bananas
4. Blood Of The Wine
5. Sing Them Down Together
6. Kentucky Is Water
7. Willow, Pine And Oak
8. Trees Of Hell
9. Rise And Rule (She Was Born In Honolulu)
10. Queens Of Sorrow
11. Crazy Blue Bells
12. Good Morning, Popocatépetl

The Blind Date Party hosted by Bill Callahan and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and featuring AZITA, Matt Sweeney, Alasdair Roberts, Matt Kinsey, Sean O’Hagan, Bill MacKay, George Xylouris, Dead Rider, David Pajo, Mick Turner, Meg Baird, Ty Segall, Emmett Kelly, Cory Hanson, Six Organs of Admittance, David Grubbs, Cassie Berman, Cooper Crain and Sir Richard Bishop happened online in the fall and winter of ’20–’21 — but the party planning dated back to the spring of 2020. Stuck at home, with no gigs in the foreseeable future, Bill, Bonnie and Drag City needed an outreach program to keep themselves busy, not to mention sane. In the absence of any company or anything on the calendar, playing songs they loved was an idea; playing with people they loved, the desire. And making it fun — so pairing someone with someone else having no say in the matter, the essence of the blind date, was the plan. Favorite songs were chose; players from around the Drag City galaxy were messaged. Pretty soon, songs were flying back and forth — music in the air!

And thus, they were entertained throughout the summer of 2020, when so much else in the world seemed so completely wrong. By the fall, the songs started to appear online: Bill and Bonnie singing a song by someone they loved and admired; each song cut by another another artist they loved and admired, then sent to Bill and Bonny to provide the finishing touches. The spotlight pointed in every direction each week: toward the singers and writers who’d originally played the songs (Yusuf Islam, Hank Williams Jr., Dave Rich, The Other

Years, Billie Eilish, Steely Dan, Lou Reed, Bill Callahan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert Wyatt, Lowell George, Johnnie Frierson, Air Supply, Will Oldham, Leonard Cohen, David Berman, Iggy Pop and John Prine), toward their featured collaborators, the artists whose artwork adorned each digital single and videos made by still more collaborators. And you, the listener.

Like the best parties, it turned out to be everything and more than they’d even hoped for. So many more people were involved in the process that we can get on the page here. Suffice to say, making records over the years has required a broad sense of community and an always-surprising mix of independence and unity, inspiration and utility. Some of our best memories are those where as many of our folks as as possible were together in one place at one time. In those moments, it was just a great thing just to be there. And with others looking in . . . this was a joy one could only be infinitely lucky to feel and to take for granted, as well.

The Blind Date Party was one of these, maybe the most improbable one yet. It’s for everyone who’s here and it’s in the name of everyone who’s gone but will never go and will always live with us here. This album will too.

And thus, we are entertained.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Combining the best elements of each others talents 'Blind Date Party' finds Bill and Will in fabulous form. Mellow, dark, country-folk laments to snuggle up to during the cold winter months.

TRACK LISTING

A
The Blackness Of The Night (feat. Azita)
OD'd In Denver (feat. Matt Sweeney)
I've Made Up My Mind (feat. Alasdair Roberts)
Red-Tailed Hawk (feat. Matt Kinsey)
Wish You Were Gay (feat. Sean O'Hagan)
Our Anniversary (feat. Dead Rider)
B
Rooftop Garden (feat. George Xylouris)
Deacon Blues (feat. Bill MacKay)
I Love You (feat. David Pajo)
C
Sea Song (feat. Mick Turner)
I've Been The One (feat. Meg Baird)
Miracles (feat. Ty Segall)
I Want To Go To The Beach (feat. Cooper Crain)
D
Night Rider's Lament (feat. Cory Hanson)
Arise, Therefore (feat. Six Organs Of Admittance)
The Night Of Santiago (feat. David Grubbs)
The Wild Kindness (feat. Cassie Berman)
Lost In Love (feat. Emmett Kelly)
She Is My Everything (feat. Sir Richard Bishop)

Where once was Superwolf, now roam Superwolves, the new album and demon spawn of Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

The songs that make up Superwolves, the duo’s second album and first since 2005’s Superwolf, go boldly into undreamed-of places, and go deep, as Matt and Bonny take all the musics they know to make songs that penetrate. In classic Garcia-Hunter style, Sweeney and the ‘Prince’ first work separately, finding a path to each other in their solitary imaginings. Bonnie lyric sets delivered to Matt spark Sweeney’s guitar brain; chords and a melody are shaped, recorded fast and loose and sent back to the Prince, then the two parties meet up to sing, stitch, strengthen and finally perform them together in front of a small unsuspecting audience. Then new sets of lyrics are sent, animated and played in a high wire style until the shared songs and experiences are ready to commit to record. This is just the beginning of their fusion process, as words imply vocalizations to counter and support, and guitar lines suggest harmonic fields to subtly push into. In this process, a new creature grows out of the old one. In this name of this partnership, the guitar shares an open and fluid space with the vocals, the voices sing with the guitars—every moment in the life of Superwolves is an extravaganza, guided only by its need.

“The chemistry comes from lives, lived separately, in which music is crucial sustenance. We listen with gratitude and awe, knowing that we belong in there. We construct our dream selves with the faith that these selves will have their chance at life. We know what we are capable of doing and just need each other’s support to bring the imagined languages to life.” — Will Oldham

“I love the challenge to write melodies for Will to sing. Struggle with that challenge too. Knowing that Will’s voice will elevate the melody makes me reach higher and dig deeper for the tune. Makes me want to match it with a guitar part that holds his voice like a chalice holds wine (or blood, or whatever is needed to live the best life). I also love singing harmonies and responses to this voice of his.” — Matt Sweeney

As far as this record, as in when and how it came together, the two man crew started working on it five years ago. The first actual session, however, went down about a year ago at Brooklyn’s Strange Weather and the next took place at the Butcher Shoppe in Nashville. Sweeney oversaw the mixing of the Brooklyn sessions with Oldham overseeing the Nashville mixes. On the album, Sweeney sings harmonies along, with, and around his favorite singer, and plays all electric, acoustic, and bass guitars, joined in places by David Ferguson on stand-up bass, Mike Coltun on electric bass, Mdou Moctar on electric lead, Ahmoudou Madassane on rhythm guitar, Souleyman Ibrahim, Ryan Sawyer and Peter Townsend on drums and Mike Rojas on keys. The Bonnie ‘Prince’ sings. Does he ever. And Superwolves rules over all.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This is a perfect collaborative effort from Sweeney & Oldham here, offsetting BPB's sometimes saccharine vocal style with Sweeney's brilliantly dynamic guitar playing. There are moments of stunning minimalistic bliss ('Resist The Urge') or more psychedelic grooving force ('Hall Of Death') but this is a constantly confounding and rewarding listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Make Worry For Me
2. Good To My Girls
3. God Is Waiting
4. Hall Of Death
5. Shorty’s Ark
6. I Am A Youth Inclined To Ramble
7. My Popsicle
8. Watch What Happens
9. Resist The Urge
10. There Must Be A Someone
11. My Blue Suit
12. My Body Is My Own
13. You Can Regret What You Have Done
14. Not Fooling

Bonnie “Prince” Billy stays busy - in the past five years he has released albums of previously-recorded songs by Susanna Wallumrod, Mekons, Merle Haggard; even himself) and a collaborative record with Bitchin Bajas! The only thing he hasn't done is a new album of Bonny originals - in case you weren't counting, 2011's Wolfroy Goes To Town was the last one. That's from the first half of the Obama presidency, for chrissakes!

Things happen for reasons that are often bigger than ourselves and outside of our control. They happen suddenly or they happen slowly - but they always happen one day at a time and day after day. Here's Will Oldham, on the confluence of marketplace, values, aesthetic and process that slowly built new album I Made A Place:

"In recent years, the whole world of recorded music, in the way that such music is conceived, perceived, recorded, released and distributed, has been atomized. I tried holding my breath, waiting for the storm to pass, but this storm is here to stay and its devastation is our new landscape. What else is a person to do except what he knows and feels, which for me is making records built out of songs intended for the intimate listening experiences of wonderful strangers who share something spiritually and musically? I started working on these songs thinking that there was no way I was going to finish them and record and release them. This was a constructive frame-of-mind that protected the songs until this frightening moment when we let go of them and give them to you."

The world has changed. Some things will never change. Some are gone forever. Thankfully, this isn't one of them: the wait for new Bonnie “Prince” Billy is now on a timer. What's more, the new single drops a bit of Apocalypse WOW. Picking up in a sense where last year's "Blueberry Jam" left off, "(At The) Back of the Pit" considers what to do with the things we love when it comes time for the death (and therefore, rebirth) of our painstakingly-built'n'kill't world. It's an affirming country jam: elegiac early moments give way to jaunty roots-rock strides, a horn section soulfully charting the long rays at the end of the day as well as the first rays of the new rising sun as they light on all our hopeful tomorrows.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I think it's probably hard for someone as resolutely productive as Mr. Billy to reach the moment in a songs creation where it feels like there is no more work to be done. Fortunately for us, these delicate, tender country ballads finally reached the light of day, and we're all the better for it. As brilliantly produced and perfectly balanced as any of his previous work, whilst being more focused and melodic. Gorgeous stuff.

Bonny sings Susanna, to simply try and save the world. Sonata Dwarf Mix Cosmos is an old companion of his and with the Chijimi house band +1 they bring it all back home again, this time to the space in Bonny’s place.

“As other practitioners are leaving the room in favor of novel forms of recording and distro and consumption, we are left with a virtual PALACE, fantastical and real structures and practices. Like we are allowed into the museum at night. We can make a great essentially live record with great songs and great players because nobody else is? ‘Wolf Of The Cosmos’... is about, as much as anything, direct engagement with recorded music. So step right up to the replicant.” - Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is joined by musicians Emmet Kelly (bass guitar, voice, acoustic guitar), Cheyenne Mize (violin, slide ukulele, voice), Chris Rodahaffer (banjo, voice, acoustic guitar) and Elsa Madeline Oldham (juice harp).

“‘Wolf Of The Cosmos’ is a wonderful obsessive trip into the mind of one of the most important living singers” - Country Music

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully emotive country-tinged plucks, BPB's unmistakable voice and softly pulled strings make for an enchanting an absorbing journey. Yet more evidence of the unwavering excellence of one of today's most successful singer-songwriters. Brilliantly fresh, but comfortable and familiar.

TRACK LISTING

Intruder
Born In The Desert
Hangout
People Living
Stay
For You
Better Days
Traveling
Demon Dance
Home Recording
We Offer
Lily

With ‘Best Troubador’, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy pays homage to a longtime and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard.

A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle’s work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine in 2009.

‘Best Troubador’ flips through his song book, landing on pages unmoored from their time and located anew. Moving from 1978 to 1969 to 2003 to 1981 allows the album to circle Haggard’s music in a simulation of thought and memory, slipping around from spot to spot as if they were discrete impressions, unknown but knowable yet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Superbly uplifting plucked guitars, swooning woodwind and Mr. Billy's sweet but serious vocal delivery. It's a wonder that there could be any more gold flowing from this supremely talented songwriter, yet it continues. Touching, beautiful and sublime.

TRACK LISTING

The Fugitive
I’m Always On A Mountain When I Fall
The Day The Rains Came
Haggard (Like I’ve Never Been Before)
I Always Get Lucky With You
Leonard
My Old Pal
Roses In The Winter
Some Of Us Fly
Wouldn’t That Be Something
Pray
That’s The Way Love Goes
Nobody’s Darling
What I Hate (Excerpt)
I Am What I Am
If I Could Only Fly

There are no Peel sessions anymore - that tradition was buried in the pyramids with John Peel himself upon the great man's passing. Of the thousands left in the wake, six are ascribed to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - and of those six, three have been combined to form the deeply congruous experience of Pond Scum.

A span of eight years is covered, in reverse, and many chestnuts are rolled out, freed of former contexts with sparse arrangements. "(I Was Drunk at the) Pulpit" feels, ten years from inception, more vividly worn; "Death to Everyone" is loosed from its frame, the bones decoupled and spread out, giving the song a re?ective air (as opposed the biting declamation of the original); "Arise, Therefore" adapts its metronomic base, the evangelic twist of its roots made palpable. With the centre of the performance in stark relief, the gnomic qualities of two "Get On Jolly" pieces are intensi?ed. Further accenting the devoted spirit of this collection is the inclusion of Bonnie's take on Prince's "The Cross", as well as the previously-unreleased original "Beezle."

Bonnie's lone shadow casts over this lot, accompanied on the ?rst four tracks by David Heumann, but otherwise playing solo through a set of original songs (and two covers) representing a decade of progress in the almost unbearably intimate-yet-unknowable manner that was so often the vibe of those strange and wondrous days.

Layers peel to reveal the subtle artistry and refinement contained within these sessions, so begin to dig deep into the vault on January 22nd, 2016! But wait, there's more! You can download a new arrangement of "Rich Wife Full of Happiness", (which is similar in tone, but not found on Pond Scum!)!

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s new album ‘Singer’s Grave A Sea Of Tongues’ is released on Domino.

At the locus of five corners, mythos is in the wind; a sea of tongues boils forth, mountains spurting forth from the magma. Bonnie sings for who he was and will be and for all of us, in time.

Bonnie Billy has been quoted as saying that one of the songs on the album is a conceptual track that’s about “one day in 1973 when only two people died in the whole world.”

TRACK LISTING

Night Noises
So Far And Here We Are
There Will Be Spring
Quail And Dumplings
We Are Unhappy
It’s Time To Be Clear
Whipped
Old Match
Mindlessness
Mew Black Rich (Tusks)
Sailor’s Grave A Sea Of Sheep

A collection of songs performed by Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy as learnt from The Everly Brothers. As children, the music of The Everly Brothers touched Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; it touches Dawn’s children and the little ‘prince’ within Bonnie today, and makes them dance and sing.

‘What The Brothers Sang’ is no mere gesture of nostalgia. These new versions rethink The Everly Brothers for the audience of listeners today; people who naturally might have no previous knowledge or experience of these songs.

There is a first time for everything. Prior to the recording, 'Wolfroy Goes To Town' was played by the whole band in performance at Chicago's Millennium Park in May, 2011. This is the first time any Bonnie album has been previewed in public before it was made in the studio!

In addition to Bonnie, the players on this record are: Ben Boye (keyboards & extra singing), Van Campbell (drums & percussion), Shahzad Ismaily (percussion, guitar, extra singing), Emmett Kelly (guitars, mandolin, harmony singing), Danny Kiely (basses) & Angel Olson (singing).

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Stark and hushed instrumentation and typically intimate vocals combine to make another Bonnie Prince Billy masterpiece. Perfect for a mellow night in with a fine whiskey. You need this!

TRACK LISTING

1. No Match
2. New Whaling
3. Time To Be Clear
4. New Tibet
5. Black Captain
6. Cows
7. There Will Be Spring
8. Quail And Dumplings
9. We Are Unhappy
10. Night Noises

For this 2010 album of songs, Bonny Billy and The Cairo Gang together have built a bridge forward, assembled with riffs and bits from Emmett Kelly's guitar and the lyricism of Bonny's heart. But mostly, "The Wonder Show Of The World" was, in its making, about trust. It's a record made eye-to-eye in a room, close and careful, by and for a few men who wanted to be together, who wanted to make music that sounds as good to listen to as it did to make, and who in doing so forged something new in space, the wonder of you and of them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Troublesome Houses
2. Teach Me To Bear You
3. With Cornstalks Or Among Them
4. Sounds Are Always Begging, The
5. Go Folks Go
6. That's What Our Love Is
7. Merciless And Great
8. Where Wind Blows
9. Someone Coming Through
10. Kids

Will Oldham, AKA Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, here continues to carve his niche in the world of indie-Americana with "Beware", his seventh under his current alias. Where his preceding album, 2008's "Lie Down In The Light", was a reasonably cheerful and buoyant affair, one look at the song titles alone for this release indicate that Oldham is considerably less bright here. Titles such as "Beware Your Only Friend", "Death Final" and "I Don't Belong To Anyone" seem to suggest that the mood is significantly more sombre for this outing. The constants with Oldham, though, are his sparse arrangements and world-weary howling delivery, and "Beware" sees him continue to be a much-admired songwriter.

TRACK LISTING

1. Beware Your Only Friend
2. You Can't Hurt Me Now
3. My Life's Work
4. Death Final
5. Heart's Arms
6. You Don't Love Me
7. You Are Lost
8. I Won't Ask Again
9. I Don't Belong To Anyone
10. There Is Something I Have To Say
11. I Am Goodbye
12. Without Work, You Have Nothing
13. Afraid Ain't Me

After abandoning the Palace moniker for a straight-up solo career, Will Oldham seemed to lose his focus a bit, but rechristened as Bonnie Prince Billy, he's regained it in spades. Where his previous solo efforts sounded thrown-together and lacked real songcraft, "I See A Darkness" is probably Oldham's most consistent, rewarding batch of songs since the Palace Brothers 93 debut. For once, the ever-elusive Oldham sounds like he's making a genuine effort to communicate - the relatively straightforward (but still poetic) lyrics, nicely arranged (but still lo-fi) sonic backdrops, and song structures with hummable (!) choruses are all unprecedented and highly agreeable developments. The titular darkness pervades much of the album, but there's an underlying warmth that shines through, making this an emotionally well-balanced effort. A Bonnie Prince Billy classic!!!

"Lie Down In The Light" is the ninth Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album, and his first proper album release since 2006's "The Letting Go". It is the brightest album to date from the Bonnie 'Prince'. Brisk tempos skip among his signature slower numbers and ballads. Bonnie's vocals are among his most expressive: carefully nuanced, singing all up and down his range, showing him at a judiciously dynamic and tuneful apex. The album features Bonnie repeat players Paul Oldham and Emmett Kelly and also benefits from the multi-instrumental presence of Shahzad Izmaily, who works percussion, piano, guitar, banjo and the mysterious, sensual 'row of wrenches'. New (duet) partner Ashley Webber forges her own presence next to Bonnie in a pair of fantastic turns. Additionally, some of Nashville's finest appear in between the band's strings and harrows, adding light (and yeah, we see a little darkness too) wherever they appear.

After a devastating string of full-lengths in the early 2000s culminating in the one-two punch of 2005's collaboration with Matt Sweeney, "Superwolf", and 2006's wrenching "The Letting Go", Will Oldham seemed to be in a state of letting go himself. He re-energized his acting career with Old Joy and a goofy appearance in a Kanye West video; wrote "His Hands", the title track to soul singer Candi Staton's comeback record; and backed up Tortoise on an odd album that featured - among other throwaways - a cover of Springsteen's "Thunder Road". "Ask Forgiveness", a mini-album of his own covers, finds Oldham back in fine form even as it chips away at his hard-earned gravitas. Recorded on a lark in Philadelphia with members of the homegrown folkie outfit Espers, "Ask Forgiveness" finds Oldham lending his trademark warble to a diverse array of numbers. While Phil Ochs, Bjork, Thom Yorke, and Danzig are all given the Palace brother's spacious and shambolic indie-folk makeover here, the collection's stand-out is R. Kelly's "World's Greatest", within which Oldham discovers an earnest heart.

Like 2003's "Master And Everyone", "The Letting Go" is a quiet, introspective record that examines the human heart, but the songs here equal or better those on its excellent predecessor. Oldham's insight into the politics of self and relationships is unflinching, and his wordplay, which balances surreal poetry with heartbreaking confessionals, is at its peak. Sonically, "The Letting Go" is expansive, adding strings, subtle percussion, and ambient effects that enhance but never crowd the songs. Harmony vocalist Dawn McCarthy contributes gorgeous textures to the mix of blues, country, folk, and minstrel-like elements, and all of it makes a persuasive case that Oldham has grown into an artist of striking vision and emotional power.

Following on from his masterpiece, "Master & Everyone", Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Palace aka Palace Brothers aka Will Oldham) returns with "Greatest Palace Music", which is a Nashville recorded, technicolor re-rendering of the fans' favourite Palace songs. Moving away from the sparseness of previous releases, the playful attention to melody here will entice a whole new audience, without (fans will be pleased to know) compromising the emotion and honesty at the core of Will Oldham's work.