City Music

Description

Driven by a languid thirst for travel, City Music tells the experience of American metropolises—and more—drawing from the songwriter's own life. As he explains: "It's a mix-tape, a dream, a love letter to these cities I can't shake off, to these cities that live within me." This new album follows Singing Saw, released in 2016. Highly acclaimed upon its release, the album was an autobiographical creation revealing the solitude and landscapes in which it was recorded. Singing Saw was envisioned as "an old shelf where young Bob and Joni would sit, staring at me, expressionless and timeless. They live here, in the left side of my brain, smoking cigarettes and playing acoustic guitar stretched out on an unmade bed." And here comes City Music, the yang to the yin, both opposed and complementary to its predecessor. As if Kevin Morby had tapped into the other part of his brain. Once again, an image might be more evocative: "This time, it's Patti Smith and Lou Reed watching the listener," Morby explains. "Lying on the floor of a 70s Manhattan living room, also smoking cigarettes." In City Music, Morby explores similar themes of solitude but this time, through the window of an upscale apartment belonging to an urban landscape "exposed like a giant raw wound."