180g Vinyl LP!
Americana Music Association Award:
Emerging Artist of The Year (2018)
Like many great Southern storytellers, singer-songwriter Tyler Childers has fallen in love with a place. The people, landmarks and legendary moments from his childhood home of Lawrence County, Kentucky, populate the 10 songs in his formidable debut, Purgatory, an album thats simultaneously modern and as ancient as the Appalachian Mountains in which events unfold.
The album, co-produced by Grammy Award winners Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, is a semi-autobiographical sketch of Childers' growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a chiaroscuro painting with darkness framing light in high relief. There's catharsis and redemption. Sin and temptation. Murder and deceit. Demons and angels. Moonshine and cocaine. So much moonshine and cocaine. All played out on the large, colorful canvas of Eastern Kentucky.
Childers had been searching for a certain sound for his debut album for years as he honed his craft, and was finding it elusive when his friend, drummer Miles Miller, introduced him to Simpson, the Grammy Award-winning musician and fellow Kentuckian. Childers sent Simpson a group of his songs, then went to visit him in Nashville.
"And he said, 'There's this sound. I know what you're trying to get at, the mountain sound,'" Childers recalled. "So I asked, 'What are you doing?'"
Intrigued, Simpson enlisted the aid of Ferguson, the Grammy Award winning sound engineer. They assembled a band that included multi-instrumentalists Stuart Duncan, Michael J. Henderson and Russ Pahl, bassist Michael Bub and Miller on drums, of course, and helped Childers make a debut album of consequence that announces an authentic new voice.
"I was writing an album about being in the mountains," Childers said. "I wanted it to have that gritty mountain sound. But at the same time, I wanted a more modern version of it that a younger generation can listen tothe people I grew up with, something I'd want to listen to."
"Purgatory is likely to be one of Americana music's big fall stories..." - NPR Music
"Purgatory often sounds like the Appalachian Mountains in how his high lonesome voice ricochets off sawing fiddles and skipping banjos. As a simple description, this may sound traditional but, in practice, Purgatory feels fresh, due largely to how Childers -- who writes all ten songs here -- isn't stuck in the past; he's viewing everything through the prism of the present. His purer string tunes bear allusions to the modern world, so when 'Universal Sound' opens with echoed guitar lines that mimic synths, it feels of a piece with the rest of the record. Also, his starker moments -- which aren't necessarily plaintive, either; they can be a rave-up like the title track -- gain resonance by sitting alongside slow-crawling, brawny country-rock, the two sounds feeling neither rebellious nor respectful but rather plain-spoken, which is a nice contrast to his sly, subtle songs. It's an album that feels lived-in, filled with songs etched from hard-earned experiences with music to match." - AllMusic
Features:
• 180g Vinyl
• Black Vinyl
• Limited time digital download
Selections:
Side A:
1. I Swear (To God)
2. Feathered Indians
3. Tattoos
4. Born Again
5. Whitehouse Road
Side B:
1. Banded Clovis
2. Purgatory
3. Honky Tonk Flame
4. Universal Sound
5. Lady May
Americana Music Association Award:
Emerging Artist of The Year (2018)
Like many great Southern storytellers, singer-songwriter Tyler Childers has fallen in love with a place. The people, landmarks and legendary moments from his childhood home of Lawrence County, Kentucky, populate the 10 songs in his formidable debut, Purgatory, an album thats simultaneously modern and as ancient as the Appalachian Mountains in which events unfold.
The album, co-produced by Grammy Award winners Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, is a semi-autobiographical sketch of Childers' growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a chiaroscuro painting with darkness framing light in high relief. There's catharsis and redemption. Sin and temptation. Murder and deceit. Demons and angels. Moonshine and cocaine. So much moonshine and cocaine. All played out on the large, colorful canvas of Eastern Kentucky.
Childers had been searching for a certain sound for his debut album for years as he honed his craft, and was finding it elusive when his friend, drummer Miles Miller, introduced him to Simpson, the Grammy Award-winning musician and fellow Kentuckian. Childers sent Simpson a group of his songs, then went to visit him in Nashville.
"And he said, 'There's this sound. I know what you're trying to get at, the mountain sound,'" Childers recalled. "So I asked, 'What are you doing?'"
Intrigued, Simpson enlisted the aid of Ferguson, the Grammy Award winning sound engineer. They assembled a band that included multi-instrumentalists Stuart Duncan, Michael J. Henderson and Russ Pahl, bassist Michael Bub and Miller on drums, of course, and helped Childers make a debut album of consequence that announces an authentic new voice.
"I was writing an album about being in the mountains," Childers said. "I wanted it to have that gritty mountain sound. But at the same time, I wanted a more modern version of it that a younger generation can listen tothe people I grew up with, something I'd want to listen to."
"Purgatory is likely to be one of Americana music's big fall stories..." - NPR Music
"Purgatory often sounds like the Appalachian Mountains in how his high lonesome voice ricochets off sawing fiddles and skipping banjos. As a simple description, this may sound traditional but, in practice, Purgatory feels fresh, due largely to how Childers -- who writes all ten songs here -- isn't stuck in the past; he's viewing everything through the prism of the present. His purer string tunes bear allusions to the modern world, so when 'Universal Sound' opens with echoed guitar lines that mimic synths, it feels of a piece with the rest of the record. Also, his starker moments -- which aren't necessarily plaintive, either; they can be a rave-up like the title track -- gain resonance by sitting alongside slow-crawling, brawny country-rock, the two sounds feeling neither rebellious nor respectful but rather plain-spoken, which is a nice contrast to his sly, subtle songs. It's an album that feels lived-in, filled with songs etched from hard-earned experiences with music to match." - AllMusic
Features:
• 180g Vinyl
• Black Vinyl
• Limited time digital download
Selections:
Side A:
1. I Swear (To God)
2. Feathered Indians
3. Tattoos
4. Born Again
5. Whitehouse Road
Side B:
1. Banded Clovis
2. Purgatory
3. Honky Tonk Flame
4. Universal Sound
5. Lady May
