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Not content with having released about a zillion records already this decade, Will Oldham is at it again, this time with an advance single from his forthcoming album Then The Letting Go, due in September.
Cursed Sleep's title gives the game away - blues, country-tinged melancholia helped along by an Icelandic string quartet and the vocal duetting of Dawn McCarthy from the Faun Fables. Like the forthcoming album, the package is produced by Bjork-collaborator Valgeir Sigursdsson, but despite the Nordic surroundings, Oldham doesn't stray from his usual modus operandi, offering up dark bass-heavy Americana on additional tracks The Signifying Wolf (complete with lupine howls) and a slow, haunting midnight prayer in God's Small Song, the sound of empty dust-bowl prairies long cleared out of hope giving way to the slow strumming of a lone guitar amidst tortured violins. Next to these, Cursed Sleep sounded positively upbeat (or as close to it as Oldham is ever likely to get).
If this is a good indication of what's to come from the album, expect more of the usual - Americana miserabilism you just can't help but love.
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