With both the immediate and the feels-like-distant-but-is-probably-also-immediate future looking bleaker than ever, I think we all need not just a break, but a break soundtrack as well. This mix began with a stylistic basis (the title comes from Davenport’s Free Country), focusing on tracks that repurpose country or Americana conventions/instruments for something much looser and, well, freer, but it evolved into what I hope is an auditory distillation of feelings many of us have all but forgotten: the gift, not the curse, of solitude; the strange comforts of the shadows and darkness that lurk just out of your reach; the alluring, unchecked expanse of the horizon; the unspoken promise that there will be something even more beautiful beyond it.
00:00. Old Saw – “Dirtbikes of Heaven, Grains of the Field” from Country Tropics (Lobby Art, 2021)
06:41. Rameses III – “No Water, No Moon” from I Could Not Love You More (Type, 2009)
12:57. Jacob Sunderlin – A side [excerpt] of Hymnal (Null Zone, 2017)
16:11. Jackie-O Motherfucker – “Falling Light” [excerpt] from Candyland (self-released, 2006)
19:58. Davenport – “The Light Ahead, the Dead Fields Behind” from Free Country reissue (Gutter Prog, 2014)
24:35. Mémoire vide – A side [excerpt] of Mémoire vide (Affenstunde, 2020)
30:32. Lake Mary & Oxherding – “Slow Grass” from With the Windows Open (Distant Bloom, 2021)
35:47. Lowercase Noises – “Roaring Forties” from Passage (self-released, 2012)
Noise Not Music 