Spencer Cullum
Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2
Full Time Hobby
14 April 2023
While Spencer Cullum may not be a name on everyone’s lips, fans of his debut album (reviewed here) have been eager to hear his follow-up. Fans will not be disappointed, even if Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2 is not likely to win all the awards it richly deserves. For an Englishman living and recording abroad, the album is a treatise on what it means to listen to the voices that drive you forward. Voices that have sent him on an amazing quest.
How you make the journey from Romford, Essex to Nashville, Tennessee, along the way getting lessons in pedal steel guitar from one of the foremost players in the world, B. J. Cole, then end up playing in Miranda Lambert’s band, is almost unbelievable on its own. A disbelieving Cullum admits, “She writes great songs, and she lets me play what I want, but it’s still bizarre, these massive crowds.” Being in her band gives him the freedom to explore the music he wants, despite serving in a situation that actually makes him feel a bit uncomfortable.
Coin Collection 2 proves there’s no need for that discomfort. If anything, it makes you wonder how this man can create tracks like these eight in just two days! While he admits, “I still want to hide behind my pedal steel in fear,” his playing certainly doesn’t show that. The playing is self-assured and daring. Tracks come at you in ways you would never expect. “The Three Magnets” bundles and blends a lifetime’s worth of influences, weaving through Krautrock, psychedelic and country as it marches along a trail offering views stretching well beyond the everyday.
Then up comes “Betwixt and Between,” where you’d swear ghosts of the original Fairport Convention are manning the instruments while Cullum and Erin Rae sing of a soldier saying goodbye to a country he may never return to again. “In a house made of stone/ built with my hands/ Crumbles when she’s all alone/ The mortar turns to sand.”
The performances on display also illustrate the high regard he’s held in by people who have ears. Providing vocals on “What a Waste of an Echo,” Dana Gavanski offers a reading that brings out both the melancholy and despair the song contains. The essential sadness at the heart of the song is eminently clear as Cullum and Gavanski sing, “A spine you’ve never had/ Clueless and cruel/ Clueless and cruel/ To harbor all that hate/ What a waste of an echo.” As the song trails off, you can hear both the subtlety and sadness while the piano and drums play out.
Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 2 forms a perfect complement to the dawning of spring. It reemerges, holding a looking glass to who we are and still manages to offer hope for what we might become. Although just one man with a pedal steel guitar, Cullum examines a world of endless possibilities. As he notes, “I sat for a long time with the songs and wanted to find my own identity.” He and his “nice little crowd of weirdos” have created something truly magical.
Spencer Cullum Dates
April
17th UK Salford Marc Riley 6 Music Session
19th DE Cologne Blue Shell
20th DE Hamburg Aalhaus
21st DK Copenhagen Huset KBH
24th UK Brighton Hope and Ruin
25th UK Leeds Hyde Park Book Club
26th UK Glasgow Broadcast
27th UK Belfast Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival
28th IE Kilkenny Kilkenny Roots Festival
29th IE Dublin Whelan’s
May
2nd UK Birmingham Hare and Hounds
3rd UK London The Lexington
4th BE Arlon Les Aralunaires
5th FR Paris L’International
Released 14th April on Full Time Hobby
Pre-Order via: https://fulltimehobby.ffm.to/coincollection2.OPR