A member of The Black Twig Pickers and House and Land (with Sarah Louise), Sally Anne Morgan released her solo debut album ‘Thread‘ in 2020, ‘an autumnal set of songs full of warmth and the fragility and beauty of nature’. For her 2021 follow-up, Cups, she eschewed her debut’s folk and pop structures for a much looser and organic approach.
For her new album, Carrying (Out on September 22nd via Thrill Jockey), she bridges the more freeform, expansive songs of her last album, as can be heard on her lead single, ‘The Center‘ on which she showcases her more lush, elaborate arrangements and adept use of guests with flautist Lou Turner’s trilling flutters and dancing melodies skittering atop the thicket of her rhythm section.
The Center is also our Song of the Day.
It is a stunner; conventional patterns are used sparingly alongside floating notes and looped arrangements to result in music that challenges and wonderfully brings to mind the magic and intricacies of nature and rural life. This is a highly creative, rich and detailed piece of work.
Glenn Kimpton on ‘Threads’
Sally Anne Morgan’s rich, intimate and modern music is cultivated with the seeds sown by folk, contemporary music and psychedelia.
Her music is traditional in the sense that she continues the practice of folk songs’ rich history in social and emotional narratives yet remains completely unbound by traditional song structures and forms. Infused with her singular perspective, Morgan’s music is elevated by her deft musical skills and her remarkably expressive voice that together create wholly new folk forms, familiar in their instrumentation yet distinctly her own. Carrying tills the rich soil of Appalachian traditions and Sally’s rural North Carolina surroundings into warm, reflective songs about navigating challenges, as well as the most joyous and personal emotions surrounding Morgan’s own pregnancy and recent birth of her first child. “The process of creating this album was intimately connected to the process of conceiving and birthing and raising a child,” says Morgan.
Morgan is joined by some of the most thoughtful players in the psychedelic folk and “cosmic country” spheres, including the foundational rhythm section of drummer Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn Band, Pelt, Black Twig Pickers), guitarist Andrew Zinn, and bassist/engineer Joe Dejarnette. The group also features guitarist Ripley Johnson (Rose City Band, Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo) contributing to Morgan’s arrangement of the Jack Elliott classic “Diamond Joe.”
Pre-Order Carrying: https://sallyannemorgan.bandcamp.com/album/carrying
