{"title":"Will Stratton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-changing-wilderness","title":"The Changing Wilderness","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe return of Will Stratton with new album \u003ci\u003eThe Changing Wilderness\u003c\/i\u003e on Bella Union. Will Stratton’s rich catalogue is proof that the Hudson Valley folk musician thrives on exploration and reflection. Chart his trajectory over his previous six albums and you’ll find a songwriter not content to stay comfortable or do the same thing twice. From his 2007 debut \u003ci\u003eWhat the Night Said\u003c\/i\u003e, which he released aged 20, to 2014’s \u003ci\u003eGray Lodge Wisdom\u003c\/i\u003e, a resilient and gorgeous LP which documented his bout with cancer, as well as 2017’s \u003ci\u003eRosewood Almanac\u003c\/i\u003e, a de facto love-letter to song-writing, his guitar, and his favourite records, the subtle but sizable tweaks to his process, arranging, and writing have been revelations. “I’ve always tried to make the process of making music as much of a source of pleasure and exploration as possible,” says Stratton. So it’s no surprise that The Changing Wilderness, his resonant and clear-eyed seventh album, pushes him to expansive new heights again. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 10 tracks on the LP came about from an intense four-year period of soul-searching and change for Stratton, where he knew he needed to change the way he wrote songs. “I was just really sick of introspection,” he says. “I had to write music that felt like it was engaging with the outside world, rather than focusing on what was going on in my own life like on my earlier records.” With the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s Presidency, and rising right-wing extremism on his mind, Stratton set out to interrogate his country’s present crises. Like the best protest music, these songs aren’t didactic or preachy. Instead, they ask more questions than claim to have answers with Stratton’s lyrics taking a scalpel-like approach to the very worst of human nature.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bella Union","offers":[{"title":"Blue | LP.","offer_id":50425056461131,"sku":"1115225","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD.","offer_id":50425058689355,"sku":"1115226","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/049a5f41-0dc8-417b-91e0-43400855d1d4_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726786200"},{"product_id":"rosewood-almanac","title":"Rosewood Almanac","description":"\u003cp\u003eBella Union is thrilled to introduce Will Stratton whose new album \u003ci\u003eRosewood Almanac\u003c\/i\u003e, will be the American’s first for the label. It’s a work of fragile magic, a hypnotic combination of beautifully breathy voice and exquisite lyrical imagery, gorgeous melodies and similarly soft-spun instrumentation, centred on his thrumming acoustic guitar and the verdant presence of velvet strings. Stratton’s arrival ends what Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde calls “a very long search.” Inspired by the female songwriters he’d signed, such as Holly Macve and Marissa Nadler, he’d “struggled to find a male artist that I could truly be excited about, that was at least the equal of the above… Someone of the calibre of Elliott Smith, Cass McCombs and Justin Vernon.” Born in California, mostly raised in New Jersey and currently an upstate New Yorker, this great-grandson of a travelling preacher started songwriting and recording while at high school, before going on to study philosophy and music composition. He developed an intimate relationship with guitar after discovering Nick Drake, whose “fluid, effortlessly beautiful style,” led on to similarly cherished Britfolk icons - Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch. But Stratton’s studies led also to chamber music, and minimalists Steve Reich and Terry Riley, which equally influenced his simultaneously complex and direct sound. \u003ci\u003eRosewood Almanac\u003c\/i\u003e was named after Stratton’s current pride and joy: his acoustic guitar. “The guitars I love most tend to be rosewood, they have a crystalline tone, but also a really dark heft. When Bob Dylan was obsessed with his ‘wild thin mercury sound’, that’s the sound of rosewood to me. It’s almost menacing in its precision.” The album’s spell weaves over a contained ten songs and 34 minutes, from the extra crystalline sparkle via the addition of electric guitar and rhythm section in the opening \u003ci\u003eLight Blue\u003c\/i\u003e, to the pared back voice-and-rosewood effect of the closing \u003ci\u003eRibbons\u003c\/i\u003e. Having listened intently to Leonard Cohen and Hank Williams, “singers who try to wring as much meaning out of every sound they’re making, in correspondence to every other sound,” Stratton has focused his singing and lyric-writing more than ever before. “Some words are political, some are imagistic, some are personal,” he vouches.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLP - With Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bella Union","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50495409914187,"sku":"1008203","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/08815347-f1d7-46d0-870e-c696d81978d8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727711022"},{"product_id":"points-of-origin","title":"Points of Origin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePoints of Origin\u003c\/strong\u003e is Will's eighth LP, his third for Bella Union, and his first for Ruination Records. His previous two albums, \u003cem\u003eThe Changing Wilderness\u003c\/em\u003e (2021) and \u003cem\u003eRosewood Almanac\u003c\/em\u003e (2017), attracted positive recognition from the likes of Elton John, Alexis Petridis at The Guardian, Tom Doyle at Mojo, and Saby Reyes-Kulkarni at Pitchfork.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWill was born in Woodland, California in 1987, spent his formative years all over the greater Pacific Northwest and mid-Atlantic United States, and has lived and worked in the Hudson Valley town of Beacon, New York for the better part of the last decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt first, longtime followers of Will's music may miss the hummingbird flutter of his fingerpicking-- though there is some undeniably marvelous guitar playing both by Will and his session killers, he's put the dazzling pull-offs on the back-burner, instead relying on more delicate piano and string ensemble overdubs that fade in and out, like catching the edge of a classical station just out of range as you drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWill's undeniable gift as a studio tinkerer is at an impressive peak here. At times the album sounds like the kind of otherworldly country music you only ever hear at a distance. \"\u003cem\u003eTemple Bar\u003c\/em\u003e\" notably does an amazing impression of Paul McCartney fronting the Band in their mode as historical reenactors. Many eras are evoked at once-- weeping slide and steel guitar, 60s pop vocal harmonies, Richard Thompson at his most ascetic, Jerry Jeff Walker at his most nostalgic, Nick Drake at his most orchestrated, ghostly digital specters swooping in during the chorus of \"\u003cem\u003eCentinela\u003c\/em\u003e,\" even one moment of stately Thin Lizzy-esque dueling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt the end of the dissociative \"\u003cem\u003eBardo or Heaven?\u003c\/em\u003e,\" layers of saxophone and overdriven guitar sublimely roil and rage, a column of approaching flame. Occasionally Will's writing on this album seems to echo a more ancient oral tradition, as if the DNA of some 16th-century ballads were somehow spliced with the lonesome stories of Denis Johnson, giving these songs a hypnotic lullaby quality-- one could imagine these songs still being interpreted 500 years in the future, when glaciers are only remembered in verse.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bella Union","offers":[{"title":"Clear LP","offer_id":50924143247691,"sku":"2235081","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50924143116619,"sku":"2235080","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a80229d7-e930-4edf-bb77-d8ef68b036c0_7920bb91_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1733246028"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/will-stratton.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}