It’s actually a shock to listen to Tyler Childers fantasize about making a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra—an Indian metropolis north of Delhi the place the Mahabharata was set—however it isn’t a shock. Whereas he will be the first individual with a Kentucky drawl to sing about dharma, rolling “just like the Pandavas” along with his brothers, and bringing his spouse and mom to a nirvana-like oasis the place they sing Hare Krishna and West Virginia fiddle requirements alike, it’s, someway, not utterly out of the best way for considered one of nation music’s most singular artists.
Ever since Purgatory, his now-classic 2017 album, turned him right into a star Appalachia may name their very own, Childers has made it his mission to redefine what which means. Sure, his father labored within the coal trade. Sure, he grew up in a trailer that sat subsequent to a Baptist church. And sure, he performs a fiddle as if he’s soundtracking bootleggers in a wagon race. However he additionally was one of many few nation stars to communicate up in assist of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Two years later, he made a gospel file that preached interfaith concord, and extra just lately, he grew to become the primary nation artist on a significant label to launch a music video that includes a homosexual love story.
For years, Childers has dealt in statements and had his “legitimacy” as a rustic musician pinballed by press and followers. His music has by no means been co-opted by exterior noise, however his releases have been neatly packaged and restricted in scope. Lengthy Violent Historical past is strictly a fiddle file; Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is his tackle gospel; Rustin’ within the Rain channels Elvis. On Snipe Hunter, nevertheless, he lets the whole lot hold within the wind, mixing classic ballads, rockabilly, and psychedelia with renewed inventive freedom. It’s his most free-spirited and pleasantly bizarre album thus far.
Maybe it was the magic contact of producer Rick Rubin or the tranquility of recording in Hawaii and Malibu that allowed Childers to drop his shoulders. Regardless, Snipe Hunter reveals his quirks whereas staying true to the traditions that made him. There’s a Southern-rock ripper that feels like an oncoming panic assault (“Snipe Hunt”), a ragtime stomp concerning the individual Childers would chew first if he had rabies (“Bitin’ Checklist”), and a pair of tracks on the again finish (“Tirtha Yarti,” “Tomcat and a Dandy”) that play on his admiration of Hinduism, even interpolating a Hare Krishna chant within the fashion of a Nineteenth-century battle hymn. (In a GQ interview, Childers described a latest journey to India, the place he grew to become acquainted with “Krishna devotees” whose apply gave him “simply as a lot energy and steering as his Christian upbringing.”)