Simpson, Sturgill: Meta Modern Sounds in Country Music (10th Anniversary) LP

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is the second studio album by American country music singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson. The album was produced and engineered by Dave Cobb and was originally released on May 13, 2014, through High Top Mountain/Thirty Tigers.

Simpson reunited with High Top Mountain producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Lindi Ortega, Jamey Johnson) for Metamodern Sounds in Country Music; the pair has formed a strong friendship in addition to a solid in-studio partnership built on complete trust and the willingness to engage in creative musical experimentation. Working with a budget of only $4,000, Simpson and his road band – bassist Kevin Black, guitarist Laur Joamets, and drummer Miles Miller - cut the entire record live to tape in four rare consecutive days off in the middle of a relentless tour schedule; nearly all of the songs were completed in two takes or fewer during these spur of the moment sessions. The result is an album that crackles with the raw energy of a concert.

Opening track “Turtles All the Way Down” was written after Simpson read Dr. Rick Strassman’s The Spirit Molecule, a book about the mystical encounters people have experienced under the influence of the hallucinogenic compound DMT. With this song, Simpson found the theme that would bind this unofficial concept record together: “Every time I take a look inside that old and fabled book/I’m blinded and reminded of the pain caused by some old man in the sky/Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT, they all changed the way I see/But love’s the only thing that’s ever saved my life."

“Life of Sin,” bolstered by twangy Telecaster, is reminiscent of a lost ‘70s outlaw country classic, and “Living the Dream” is its rebellious twin as Simpson spits, “I don’t have to do a goddamn thing except sit around and wait to die.” The spiritual “A Little Light Within,” originally written for a companion soundtrack to AMC’s hit show The Walking Dead, instead found a home among Metamodern Sounds as well. A rafter-rattling, handclapping gospel call and response singalong that channels classic recordings made by the Stanley and Louvin Brothers, it’s uplifting even without the imminent threat of a zombie apocalypse.

The musical experimentation and genre blending continue as the band dabbles in a bit of “analog dub step” on the seven-minute epic “It Ain’t All Flowers.” Rounding out the 9-song track listing are two fascinating choices in cover songs from opposite ends of the musical spectrum: Charlie Moore and Bill Napier’s bluegrass trucker tune “Long White Line,” a song that makes the album’s figurative journey a literal one as it chugs along with the rhythm of the road, and When in Rome’s 1988 single “The Promise,” which Simpson transforms from a New Wave dance hit to a tender country ballad.

"It's a work of significant reflection, instrumental experimentation and emotional evolution, influenced by but not imitative of the works of Roy Orbison, Otis Redding and Waylon Jennings. It's a mighty, yet mightily considered, roar." - Peter Cooper, The Tennessean

The Metamodern Sounds in Country Music 10 Year Anniversary Edition features fully reimagined album artwork for the vinyl release. This vinyl variant is packaged in an "old-style" tip-on gatefold jacket and pressed on 180g black vinyl.