Bubble [VINYL]

Whitney K returns with ‘Bubble’, his first album for Fire Records and follow-up to 2022’s acclaimed ‘Hard To Be A God’. Whitney K continue his migrant mind games, summoning up a series of intriguing characters, littered with everyday foibles and fantasies. Along the way, he pens a journal of possibilities as he travels further into transient America, touching on everything from bar room chatter, rumour and distortion to misinformation, daydreams, misunderstanding and self-realisation; with anecdotes lifted from the paperback in his back pocket and his half-forgotten past. ‘Bubble’ is a 13-part cerebral mystery that unravels on songs that bring to mind the gruff sentimentality of the late Kris Kristoferson, Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’, Eels at their most troubled and the American Gothic sketches of David Ackles; the perfect soundtrack for a Raymond Carver book club. “Nomadic Canadian channelling magical realism, country rock and Lou Reed.” Uncut Recorded in Montreal, it’s self-produced by band members Josh Boguski and Michael Halls at their home studio. This stripped back release is Whitney K’s most raw yet refined work to date—an honest, sonically paradoxical collection that finds fresh possibilities in the familiar shapes of rock, pop, and folk with the same unfiltered energy and poetic gravity we have come to expect from this modern-day troubadour whose descriptive storytelling is filled with sketchy characters and rudimentary comment. “Remarkably sophisticated musical blend… Inventing exciting new directions for roots music all along the way.” MOJO. "Strings swell up around him with a gorgeous “Street Hassle” style melancholy" Aquarium Drunkard. “Immediately striking” Paste