093074024423
093074024416

Last Of The Better Days Ahead (2LP)

Charlie Parr

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Format: CD

Cat No: SFW40244

Format Details: 2LP

Release Date:  30 July 2021

Label:  Smithsonian Folkways

Packaging Type:  Digipak

No of Units:  1

Barcode:  093074024423

Genres:  Americana  Contemporary Folk  

Release Date:  19 November 2021

Label:  Smithsonian Folkways

Packaging Type:  Gate Fold Vinyl

No of Units:  2

Barcode:  093074024416

Genres:  Americana  Contemporary Folk  

  • Description

    Charlie Parr's newest album, 'Last of the Better Days Ahead', is a collection of powerful new songs about how one looks back on a life lived, as well as forward on what's still to come. Its spare production foregrounds Parr's poetic lyricism, his expressive, gritty voice ringing clear over deft acoustic guitar playing that references folk and blues motifs in Parr's own exploratory, idiosyncratic style. When it comes to what it all means, Parr says it best:

    "'Last of the Better Days Ahead' is a way for me to refer to the times I'm living in. I'm getting on in years, experiencing a shift in perspective that was once described by my mom as 'a time when we turn from gazing into the future to gazing back at the past, as if we're adrift in the current, slowly turning around.' Some songs came from meditations on the fact that the portion of our brain devoted to memory is also the portion responsible for imagination, and what that entails for the collected experiences that we refer to as our lives. Other songs are cultivated primarily from the imagination, but also contain memories of what may be a real landscape, or at least one inspired by vivid dreaming. The album represents one full rotation of the boat in which we are adrift—looking ahead for a last look at the better days to come, then being turned around to see the leading edge of the past as it fades into the foggy dreamscape of our real and imagined histories."

    Description

    Charlie Parr's album, 'Last of the Better Days Ahead', is a collection of powerful new songs about how one looks back on a life lived, as well as forward on what's still to come.

    Its spare production foregrounds Parr's poetic lyricism, his expressive, gritty voice ringing clear over deft acoustic guitar playing that references folk and blues motifs in Parr's own exploratory, idiosyncratic style.

    When it comes to what it all means, Parr says it best: "Last of the Better Days Ahead is a way for me to refer to the times I'm living in. I'm getting on in years, experiencing a shift in perspective that was once described by my mom as 'a time when we turn from gazing into the future to gazing back at the past, as if we're adrift in the current, slowly turning around.' Some songs came from meditations on the fact that the portion of our brain devoted to memory is also the portion responsible for imagination, and what that entails for the collected experiences that we refer to as our lives. Other songs are cultivated primarily from the imagination, but also contain memories of what may be a real landscape, or at least one inspired by vivid dreaming. The album represents one full rotation of the boat in which we are adrift—looking ahead for a last look at the better days to come, then being turned around to see the leading edge of the past as it fades into the foggy dreamscape of our real and imagined histories."

  • Tracklisting

      Disc 1

      Side 1

      • 1. Last Of The Better Days Ahead
      • 2. Blues For Whitefish Lake, 1975
      • 3. Walking Back From Willmar
      • 4. Anaconda
      • 5. Everyday Opus
      • 6. On Fading Away
      • 7. 817 Oakland Avenue
      • 8. On Listening To Robert Johnson
      • 9. Bed Of Wasps
      • 10. Rain
      • 11. Decoration Day

    Tracklisting

      Disc 1

      Side 1

      • 1. Last Of The Better Days Ahead
      • 2. Blues For Whitefish Lake, 1975
      • 3. Walking Back From Willmar
      • 4. Anaconda

      Side 2

      • 1. Everyday Opus
      • 2. On Fading Away

      Disc 2

      Side 3

      • 1. 817 Oakland Avenue
      • 2. On Listening To Robert Johnson
      • 3. Bed Of Wasps
      • 4. Rain

      Side 4

      • 1. Decoration Day