Debra Fotheringham - The Darkness and the Sun (2017)

Debra Fotheringham didn’t leave music. Far from it. She’s made plenty of music in the years since her last original EP, 2010’s Time. Her voice featured on songs by EDM artist Kaskade and six albums by folk/bluegrass/gospel collective The Lower Lights (one song of which featured prominently in a scene from AMC’s Hell On Wheels); she even recorded an album of covers—from Hank to Dolly to Wilco to Lucinda Williams— with The Blue Heart Revue.

But new, original songs were another story. Call it woodshedding. Call it hibernating. Call it whatever a caterpillar does in the cocoon. But Debra was absorbing it all, taking her time, ingesting Americana, electronica, bluegrass, rock of the classic and indie varieties, and more. And it all filters in its own way into her new album The Darkness & The Sun.