John Calvin Abney rises again from the Oklahoman prairies with his latest album Transparent Towns, available September 19 on his own Tin Canyon Records, via Well Kept Secret / Secretly Distribution. The songs focus on how we remember, and ultimately accept, though he is not always certain the memories we carry adequately mark the moments that make us.

“This record is wrapped around the passage of time, whether or not we can trust the memories that we swear on, how we forgive ourselves and others as seasons turn, and how we define what is important as we roll the boulder back up the hill,” Abney says of Transparent Towns. “We build these routines and live our stories, we rely on our histories and our memories - spoken and recorded. Now, we’re relying on copies of copies, memories of memories, all packed like sardines into our phones, and we’re losing the ability to tell our own stories. I have to constantly remind myself, as well as redefine what matters at the end of a day.”

Transparent Towns is the seventh studio album for Abney, and his first since 2022’s Tourist, which he crafted after spending the pandemic as an itinerant writer. In contrast Abney penned most of the album’s10 tracks during a period of introspection and convalescence while recovering from vocal cord surgery in 2023. The time to himself - “I didn’t sing for nearly a year, and after surgery, I couldn’t talk for a month, and couldn’t sing for over three months,” he says, left him contemplating how to trace his experiences in the silence.

The album’s title track is Abney’s take on the inaccessible past, witnessing loss and grief through the years, damning the “days we let go left unsaid”, and accepting the uncontrollable circumstances we are sometimes placed in. “The troubles and the joys exist vibrantly in your memory, but you’re wondering if you remember correctly,” Abney remarks. “I’ve sometimes had this sort of confusion between memory and dreams - you crafted this ideal in your head of how things were or might be, in order to soften the blow of a harsher reality.”

The places we inhabit dictate how our memories form, and for Abney, there is one place to which he is constantly drawn: Oklahoma. Although he was born in the biggest little city in America, Reno, Nevada, he grew up learning guitar and piano in Tulsa, playing bars and DIY spaces from Norman to Stillwater. His affinity for the land that raised him is evident in the production of Transparent Towns.

Abney self-produced the record, tracking most of it at Cardinal Song outside of Oklahoma City, with Michael Trepagnier handling mixing and engineering. The band was comprised mostly of Sooner State musicians too, along with Lydia Loveless and John Moreland contributing harmony vocals. His signature vulnerable voice and lyrical handiwork comes through in each of the songs, along with his penchant for alternative pop melodies set against colorful chords and subtle soundscapes.

Having toured for years backing up artists like Moreland, Wild Child, Ben Kweller, and S.G. Goodman, Abney embraces a lead role again, as he presses forward with the loving lament and defiant joy throughout Transparent Towns, calling us to leave behind the pressures we place on our ourselves and recognize that just because there is an ending, it doesn’t mean it’s the end.
https://johncalvinabney.bandcamp.com/
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Someone’s Monster, the new album from Loose Cattle produced by John Agnello, finds the band moving decisively on from their earlier countryfied reexaminations of other writers’ songs and taking on powerful new identities as songwriters, becoming a band with a broad sonic pallet wrapped around an urgently questioning core. Formed by co-bandleaders Michael Cerveris and Kimberly Kaye, Loose Cattle has been part of New Orleans’ uniquely diverse and eclectic Americana roots music scene for over a decade. Its members individually bring rich and varied musical pedigrees to the band, having played with everyone from Alex Chilton and The Iguanas to Bob Mould and Pete Townshend, meanwhile collecting a Grammy, multiple Tony Awards, and a host of local music honors. Their 2017 holiday album, Seasonal Affective Disorder, appeared on numerous best-of lists, including Rolling Stone Country’s 10 New Country And Americana Christmas Songs To Hear Right Now, with No Depression declaring “This might be the best album of the season.” Appearances at New Orleans Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest and repeat visits to NPR’s Mountain Stage and Lincoln Center’s American Songbook have garnered them fans and friends like Lucinda Williams, members of Drive By Truckers, and the Grammy-winning Lost Bayou Ramblers, all of whom guest on their upcoming debut on the famed Single Lock Records label, based in Muscle Shoals.
https://loosecattle.bandcamp.com/
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Daughter–her first album in four years–marks the triumphant return of Lydia Loveless, and documents a period of personal upheaval, including a divorce and an interstate move away from her longtime home. Left feeling unmoored and adrift, Loveless worked to redefine herself, both in her own mind and within the context of the world. Written with her characteristic candidness and razor-sharp wit, Daughter is a self-aware journey into independence.
http://www.lydialoveless.com/music

John Calvin Abney / Loose Catttle / Lydia Loveless

John Calvin Abney / Loose Catttle / Lydia Loveless