
Colter Wall
Singer


from his "Colter Wall" debut 2017. Young Mary's Record Co. Colter Wall is one of country music’s most exciting young voices. His debut album is strange and stirring, rarely ever rising above a gentle rumble. During the mid-1990s, a new back-to-basics movement swept through country music. Johnny Cash kicked off his fruitful American Recordings partnership with Rick Rubin; Willie Nelson released the sparse, unadorned Spirit; and—in the city of Swift Current in Saskatchewan, Canada in June 1995—Colter Wall was born. Blessed with a curious, slurring baritone that burbles like smoke from a chimney, Wall writes country songs as stark and traditional as they come, accompanied by little more than an acoustic guitar. To call him wiser than his years would be an understatement: veteran songwriters go to great lengths to sound so gruff and world-weary. The 11 tracks on his self-titled debut are strange and stirring enough to make him one of the genre’s most exciting young voices. Rarely ever rising above a gentle rumble, Wall’s songs zoom in on haunting scenes and resolve in unexpected ways. They gain their intensity from his vivid, fragmented storytelling. The album begins with “Thirteen Silver Dollars,” a spirited ramble that finds our narrator lying in the snowy streets of Saskatchewan before a cop comes to take him away. Wall never explains how he wound up there (“For now we’ll say I had no place to go,” he offers) or what happens next—there’s not even a second verse. Instead, he closes with a rousing repetition of the chorus, proudly naming the few possessions he owns. It’s a fitting introduction to an album built from small details, conjuring larger pictures with what’s left out. Wall’s aversion to narrative spans the record and makes these songs a lot more hallucinogenic than their earthy arrangements suggest. “Kate McCannon” is told through one of folk music’s oldest tropes: the dual love song/murder ballad. But Wall offers little time for reflection, fading out shortly
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Colter Wall
Singer