Ennoia by Thee Conductor with Bpnnie “Prince” Billy
Release date: February 9, 2024Label: Self-Released
Austin Texas artist Jason Butler seems to have some serious clout in the music circles. For his latest album, ‘Ennoia’ Butler has extensively collaborated with Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who sings on all the tracks, but also with Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and Tosca String Quartet, who work with David Byrne, as well as a few others.
Often, with such projects, the problem can be that the collaborators can overpower the main artist or the music is not up to par with the names involved.
No problem in that respect here. After all, the project is billed jointly to Butler and Oldham; both are the main features here. Butler, with his detailed and well-constructed songs (with excellent arrangements from Christopher Cox), and Oldham with his distinctive, always compelling vocals. Butler and Oldham obviously work well together, as this is their second joint project.
Lyrics also seem a perfect fit for Oldham:
“Hey big man are you coming?
The buildings tall and it’s burning
Well I know, you’ve seen everything
Things are harder than you think” (‘Big Man’)
Any quibbles? Well, possibly the brevity of the album, because the songs here are so well constructed, played, and sung that you certainly long for more. Well, maybe we can all search out the previous Butler/Oldham project.
