The offbeat pseudonym belongs to Sturgill Simpson, American country’s most singular star, for whom five albums under one name is enough (he has actually issued seven, two being old songs recast in bluegrass style). His new guise proves deeply ironic, as opener Swamp of Sadness makes clear, with most of the other numbers similarly cast under a pall of heartache, anguish and regret.
Nakedly autobiographical, it’s a deeply emotional journey. Despite numerous accolades, Simpson’s wayward talents have never been a comfortable fit for conservative Nashville. His early records drew comparisons with the “outlaw country” of Waylon Jennings, though imaginative arrangements also cast them as “cosmic country”, while 2019’s Sound and Fury was a blaze of virtuoso guitar shredding.
Passage du Desir is a return to the style of 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, mixing cowboy honky-tonk with bluesy guitar and sweeping strings. Its songs are characteristically poetic, whether describing a sojourn in Paris – “a drunken sailor lost and lonely in a sad and magic swamp” – or the tender grief on hearing an old lover has died, on Jupiter’s Faerie. The nine minutes of One for the Road are a plea for forgiveness in a sea of ethereal strings; a beautiful lament.
