Darius Degher - Rhyme in the Wreckage (2025)

Darius Degher has a new album Rhyme in the Wreckage which is foundationally a book of moving poetry set to music over 11 interesting, congenial and enjoyable folk songs with occasional accordion, guest vocalists, strings and various guitars. Rhyme in the Wreckage was produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Darius at Little Parthenon Studio in Leucadia, California. Darius is a deeply philosophical songwriter who produces songs that sound light and nimble and support inner quietude while they frequently probe human nature thoughtfully, and other times poke a bit of fun at life.

As it says on his social media: Darius is a maker of music and poetry.

“Ode to California” sets the tone for the record, with poetic acknowledgment of the width and breadth of its landscape and its occupants: “Your mountains and your Golden Gate, your beaches and your bays / Your fat-cat valley farmers and your desert castaways / Juggernaut economy attracting every kind / Those picking the tomatoes and those altering the mind.” Immediately the listener is struck by the honesty Darius can casually distill into just a few moments of song, and “without you California I’d be in a sorry state.” Cathryn Beeks adds chilling harmonies and the song bespeaks a nimble and intellectual style. The gentle guitar solos and the earthy percussion ground the affair. The song is over five minutes, but a longer version closes the album with another minute.

“Card with Hearts” is an easygoing love song featuring Cleopatra Degher on vocal harmonies: “I think my love’s like jade, it won’t break or fade,” and the song fits in squarely in the folk music scene. “One Man Said” is an uptempo shuffle with touches of accordion and the allure of a poetic rendition of cult leaders who captivate crowds with outrageous claims that are wild story lines and improbably wicked claims. The song culminates with “He said the deep state stole the election / They took away it all away from me / Those voting machines were corrupted / They denied me the presidency / Somebody’s got a wild imagination.”

“How is it a Hummingbird” features Cordelia on vocal harmonies and is an astounding philosophical consideration of the complexity of nature contrasted to the occasional bumbling of the human mind: “How is it a hummingbird can migrate all those miles and know the way / When I’ve got spinning satellites and I can’t even navigate my day / The hummingbird flies alone / A thousand miles and more between homes / Over the tops of trees, she knows / Where the tail wind blows.”

Cindy Lee Berryhill joins in on vocals on “The Premonition,” and the result is sweet, cheeky and brilliant, as there are earthquakes, little earthquakes, life events and catastrophes that were foreseen, although the accuracy is in question: “Nostradamus knew this would happen / Wrote it down with a great feather pen / Saw clearly that it was coming / He just didn’t say when / They just didn’t say when.”

In “Travel in My Garden” Darius gently appreciates the beauty of one’s own garden – without having to travel anywhere at all, in lines that somehow express the magic effortlessly: “I’ll travel in my garden / Watch the weather vane / And trace the contrails from a passing plane / And listen for the song of a distant train / I’m not romanticizing foreign rain…” The music is disarming folk lullabies in appreciation of the small things like a monarch on milkweed.

You might think of poetry as impenetrable, but don’t. Darius Degher shows the easygoing delight that shines through quality poetry as well as quality songwriting, there’s nothing obscure here at all. The album is as thought-provoking as it is light and accessible, and that’s quite an accomplishment.

Rhyme in the Wreckage is as its title suggests – rhymes in songs that spring like phoenixes reborn from the ashes of modern wreckages such as earthquakes, aging, decimation of nature, attention to false prophets and more.