Although best known for fronting The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, Erik Brandt is no slouch when it comes to making music under his own name, and Folksinger is his fourth solo album. It’s certainly an album that is happy to hop genres and juggle styles, but as it runs across the musical map, the songs remain connected by themes of family and place, love and longing… life in general.
After the title track kicks us off, painting a steel-pedal washed picture that all grassroots musicians will recognise, the tale of the jobbing folksinger compelled to follow that life, he pens a wonderful love letter to his adoptive home town of St Paul. I’ve never been there, but the lyrics are so well crafted, so well chosen that I almost feel as if I have.
And if those two songs seem to head the album off down a rootsy, singer-songwriter path, Brandt soon shakes things up. “Size of Diamonds” is a melodic slice of indie-rock with a guitar twang that Peter Buck would be proud of, “Narcissus” is a brooding Jacques Brel -esque piece of cafe jazz, and “Play Side B” runs on a New Orleans groove.
He saves the best ‘til last, certainly if you are fans of deft and delicate ballads, “Weary Traveler” closing the album with a weave of gentle guitar and poised piano, and featuring the additional breathtakingly gorgeous vocals from Hungarian singer Ági Mohácsy.
I must admit that I am late to the party and that Folksinger is my first encounter with Erik Brandt. But I assure you that I will be taking a deep dive through his, and indeed UHQ’s, back catalogue as soon as is humanly possible.
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