Dorthia Cottrell to Release Death Folk Country April 21; “Family Annihilator” Video Posted
Hey, if Dorthia Cottrell is going to be a brooding part-goth next-generation take on heavy Americana folk, I am — in the parlance of 2019 — here for it. The Windhand vocalist released her eponymous debut solo album in 2015 and will follow it with Death Folk Country via Relapse Records on April 21. A video for the immersive, organ-and-cymbal-wash=backed, many-layered “Family Annihilator” is streaming now at the bottom of this post, and yeah, the PR wire’s a little late since the song’s been out a couple days now and I’m a little late since the PR wire sent the stuff yesterday, but like you and everybody else, I’m doing my best here to keep up. Maybe I wanted to wait until I actually had a few minutes to actually listen to some music before I wrote about it. Crazy I know in this go-go-go universe of infinite consumption and immediate gratification. If nothing else, “Family Annihilator” is a good occasion to slow your ass down for about seven of those otherwise vaporized minutes.
And special kudos for the line “Glory is no pedestal I’ll put my foot upon.” That’s not the kind of thing people talk about when they say “real America,” but it should be.
From the PR wire:
DORTHIA COTTRELL (WINDHAND) ANNOUNCES NEW SOLO ALBUM DEATH FOLK COUNTRY OUT APRIL 21
SHARES “FAMILY ANNIHILATOR” MUSIC VIDEO
PRE-ORDER/WATCH: https://orcd.co/dorthia-dfc
Pre-Order via Relapse.com here: http://bit.ly/dorthia-dfc
Dorthia Cottrell envisions her music as both a document of love and a reconciliation with death. On her new album, Death Folk Country, Cottrell wards off death through creation – the most distilled form of love. The spirit of love passed on through her words will be the ultimate reward for earthly suffering. Cottrell’s enigmatic presence guides listeners down a path of introspection – Death Folk Country’s massive scope touches upon tales of love, loss, and so much more.
Cottrell was raised in rural King George, Virginia, a town with less than 5,000 inhabitants. Forests and tall-grass fields stretched before her. Beauty and boredom soared. That vague melancholy and memory of the American South is smudged all over Cottrell’s music. Cottrell grew up a goth, an outcast in a small town – a time and place she revisits throughout Death Folk Country.
“This album to me is about painting a picture of a place where my heart lives,” Cottrell explains. The title Death Folk Country is partly me describing a genre that fits the sound – but it’s also meant to be taken as a Naming, a coronation of the world inside me. Death Folk Country is the music and also the land where the music takes place, and the two have always been inextricable from each other.”
The album’s lead single “Family Annihilator” directly speaks to the unease and tension of Cottrell’s surroundings. “Porch lights keep the demons at bay,” she sings over crashing cymbals and a field recording of birds. “I had never played it before, I kind of brought it out of the attic,” Cottrell says of the song. Despite being over a decade old, “Family Annihilator” spoke to the moment she was in. With the threat of another four years of conservative offices in power, Cottrell thought of family back in the South who would be voting, and remembered something her grandfather, a farmer, had told her years ago: “If a crop is diseased, you have to burn the whole crop.” “‘Family Annihilator’ is a result of me wondering if the whole field must burn today, to save the flowers of tomorrow,” Cottrell says.
Death Folk Country Track Listing:
01 – Death Is The Punishment For Love
02 – Harvester
03 – Black Canyon
04 – Family Annihilator
05 – Effigy At The Gate Of Ur
06 – Midnight Boy
07 – Hell In My Water
08 – Take Up Serpents
09 – For Alicia
10 – Eat What I Kill
11 – Death Is Reward For Love
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