Bart Budwig - Another Burn on the Astroturf (2020)

Bart Budwig is a son of Idaho, a cosmic country crooner, a rousing trumpet player, and cryin'-style soul singer. His music is made up of seemingly incongruous parts; thrum & strum country rhythms, jazz guitar melodies, R&B vocals. When Bart sings he draws out words into meditative mantras, whole note neologisms that keep you hanging on until his raspy voice trails off in a ragged edge. His forthcoming album, Another Burn On The AstroTurf was recorded over five days by a seven-piece band inside the historic OK Theater in Enterprise, OR. It's a melancholy rhapsody that recalls the uncorked rock n' roll spirituality of king mystic Van Morrison, the gloomy nostalgia of dark prince Nick Drake and the songcraft sans self-seriousness of 70s Muscle Shoals. Like those psycho-spiritual song crafters, his power comes from vocal idiosyncrasies - intonations of love, impermanence, hope, humor.