Childress, Joseph

Childress, Joseph

Joseph Childress

Empty Cellar

Presenting Joseph Childress’s second LP release, following his 2013 collection of home recorded demos, The Rebirths. The tracks on this self-titled album are borne from his adventures throughout the West: working on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, riding trains and living out of his car. His poignant lyrics about loneliness and the western landscape are right at home with a stronger country sound that defines itself on the record’s opening track “My Land.” Childress recorded in Portland with veteran Americana musician and producer Mike Coykendall, known for his work with M. Ward, Bright Eyes, Jolie Holland, She & Him and Old Joe Clarks. He began with tracking guitar and vocals solo. Additional musicians Aaron Robinson (Linda Perhacs, Sean Rowe, Bridget St. John), Joey Ficken (Swords), Tom Lucas (Crooked Jades) and Coykendall layered guitars, percussion, fiddle and bass to create a hearty mountain band that pivots between spartan country, gritty pop, and outsider Americana. The results follow in the tradition of earlier troubadours (Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Kate Wolf) and modern alt-country artists (Jason Molina, Cass McCombs and Will Oldham).  Childress’s romantic despair and cautious optimism are a snapshot of a modern journeyman, a man who is confronting the myths of the West while attempting to create his own. Coykendall’s production, with the mixing assistance of Chris Arnold (The American Opry) and mastering by Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers), clears a spot among the rafters of an old barn deep in the Oregon night, allowing witness to Childress...

Childress, Joseph

The Rebirths

Empty Cellar

***This is the debut full-length by JOSEPH CHILDRESS. The ten songs on this record, dubbed The Rebirths by fans, were penned on the road during nearly two years of “hard traveling”—hopping freight trains, hitchhiking, and eventually living out of a car. All this came to a halt shortly after finding trouble in New Orleans, prompting Joseph to find his way back to his childhood home in the Colorado Rockies. Once there, he locked himself in the bathroom with his road-worn guitar—its neck cracked while jumping from a train—and recorded this album. Filled with young wisdom, heartbreak, and spirited jubilee, this self-recording of Joseph Childress is a stirring introduction to a young songwriter with a soul-piercing voice and an undeniable gift of song. A low-fi snapshot of his experiences, The Rebirths captures a moment of euphoria as Joseph’s personal stories unfold into timeless songs. Peppered with thumps, creaks, improvised percussion, the weather outside the bathroom window… these recordings serve as a raw document of the time and space in which these tracks were laid. Joseph’s emotionally charged voice is powerful as it tackles tragedy and triumph over guitar that ranges from intricate finger-style to furious strumming. Fans of haunted troubadours Jason Molina, Jackson C. Frank, Townes Van Zandt and early lo-fi pioneers will find many similarities in Joseph's music, but even more striking will be Joseph's refreshingly original command of song. In print due to relentless demand, this presentation of The Rebirths—available worldwide on bright white vinyl—is newly mixed by The...