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The Spur

by Joan Shelley

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jly54
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jly54 Beautiful album throughout, but the lyrical depth and precision of the first track continues to wow me. Favorite track: Forever Blues.
pvs_
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pvs_ The soundtrack of the summer. Favorite track: Completely.
wgs1230
wgs1230 thumbnail
wgs1230 Delivers relief from our devolution into cynicism with lyrical subtlety and a rich sonic palette. Looking forward to hearing these songs performed live, too. Favorite track: Why Not Live Here.
gregpolard
gregpolard thumbnail
gregpolard One of the best albums released this year (2022). Not sure why this hasn’t skyrocketed Joan to fame, tbh. Every song is perfectly executed and her voice just makes me melt. This is one that will be getting played by me for years to come. Favorite track: Why Not Live Here.
Pete Brown
Pete Brown thumbnail
Pete Brown exquisite, as always Favorite track: Why Not Live Here.
DanglerRed
DanglerRed thumbnail
DanglerRed Another brilliant outing from Joan & Co. Favorite track: Amberlit Morning.
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    The Spur LP pressed on black vinyl!

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    The Spur (2022) & Like The River Loves The Sea (2019) on LP!

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The Spur on compact disc!
    4 panel wallet with a lyric booklet

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  • The Spur LP (Seaglass Wave)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    The Spur LP! Pressed on limited edition "seaglass wave" vinyl (available only via Bandcamp/No Quarter)

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Spur via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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The Spur 03:52
3.
Home 04:24
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5.
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7.
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Fawn 02:30
9.
10.
Bolt 02:47
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12.
Completely 03:43

about

I want to explain these songs / I want to leave them unexplained.

We’ve all been working with a lot of silence.

I was tired from touring, remembering the long drives across the midwestern plains at dusk, against the pale yellow sky seeing the black outline of the horizon with the occasional silhouette of a little farmstead, a corn crib or windmill, beyond, a breaking society, beyond, the aches of a world in pain.

A powerful tugging between apparently opposite things, hopelessness and resilience, isolation and togetherness, all at once.

A deep connection to our homeplace, to staying, a complex reckoning with family, with the past, with the rubble, with the wind taken out of everyone’s sails, with new life and constant death.

We returned to the feral tree farm.

Raising goats, chickens, listening to birds, watching the river, growing a child.

A deep clean spring.

So I started reaching out. Bringing in.

I wanted these people I admire to be close to me in the game, in the tangle of my emotions, in my unaddressed fears, I wanted them woven into my tapestries, which are songs, because I am only a bird on a branch echoing others, embellishing the present with past inventions.

Let the new world come around.

Together we shook these things out of the rug, our shared anxieties, our guilt, our joy, discomfort and heartbreak. We asked and were asking of each other.

Dying breath, wind-breath, singing breath shared beyond the language song, strings and brass, heartbeats and drums, wooden and stone breath, water and light, non-human breath, written breath, the little breaths of a newborn thing.

Now I sing some of these songs to my daughter. Soothing her discomforts. Especially “completely,” she likes to hear that one. How it goes from low to high.

How it goes from song into silence, and back again.

Do you know that line of Wendell Berry’s “make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came”?

credits

released June 24, 2022

Produced by James Ekington. Recorded and mixed by Zak Riles at Earthwave Studio, Shelbyville, Kentucky.

All songs by Joan Shelley with additional lyric contributions from Bill Callahan ("Amberlit Morning"), Katie Peabody ("The Spur"), Max Porter ("Breath For The Boy")

Joan Shelley - vocals, acoustic and resonator guitars, piano
Nathan Salsburg - acoustic and electric guitars
James Elkington - drums, keyboards, dobro, mandola, bass, recorder, percussions
Meg Baird - vocals (1, 11)
Bill Callahan - vocals (4)
Anna Jacobson - brass (5, 6, 10)
Sean Johnson - drums (12)
Lia Kohl - cello (1, 6)
Nick Macri - upright bass (1, 7, 12)
Spencer Tweedy - drums (5, 10)

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about

Joan Shelley Louisville, Kentucky

Joan Shelley is a songwriter and singer from Louisville, KY. Often joined by guitarist Nathan Salsburg, she has shared shows with the likes of Jake Xerxes Fussell, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Richard Thompson, Wilco, Marisa Anderson, Daniel Martin Moore, the Other Years, & Michael Hurley. ... more

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