Photo by Alexa Viscius

Even in life’s cruel passings, the love for what Low and Alan Sparhawk have done to stay resilient within the dark remains undying. The body of work that he and wife, Mimi Parker, created prior to her passing was a rebirth of their own selves for whatever the times asked of them. Sparhawk, who has since continued to forge that spirit through his own solo work, shows no signs of unchallenging the state of everything on “Stranger”. Following a Sparhawk familial sync on last year’s experimental electronic mutation, White Roses, My God, he again turns to his earthly community with fellow Duluthians in bluegrass folk troupe, Trampled By Turtles, by his side for its follow-up. As its first single, Sparhawk and company carry on into greater unknowns through an unsettling busk which professes its own strange duality: a cautious omen of the outside knotted in thorns and twine that also holds a hearth of goodwill on the inside once you figure out a way to untie it. “You gotta put up with stranger / People than you know now / You gotta go through some dangerouser / Things than you thought you’d have to,” Sparhawk sings, his neck stretched far out. Nothing, it would seem, is beyond stepping out of his comforts…

Edited by: Jacob Kasar

Alan Sparhawk’s With Trampled by Turtles will be released May 30th on Sub Pop.