It’s definitely 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 often is the first particular person 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, by some means, not fully out of the best way for certainly one of nation music’s most singular artists.
Ever since Purgatory, his now-classic 2017 album, turned him right into a star Appalachia might name their very own, Childers has made it his mission to redefine what meaning. 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 help of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Two years later, he made a gospel file that preached interfaith concord, and extra lately, he turned the primary nation artist on a serious label to launch a music video that encompasses 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 outdoors 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 every part grasp 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 in regards to the particular person Childers would chunk first if he had rabies (“Bitin’ Record”), 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 current journey to India, the place he turned acquainted with “Krishna devotees” whose observe gave him “simply as a lot energy and steering as his Christian upbringing.”)
