Joseph Allred

I wouldn’t blame you one bit for being a little intimidated by the catalog of Joseph Allred. 20+ albums scattered across labels from Feeding Tube, to Centripetal Force, Worried Songs, and Island House. It’s daunting for any new listener, but always worth the time, no matter where your entry point lies. That said, there are some definite highlights among Allred’s fingerpicked folklore, and along with Branches & Leaves and Traveler, their latest album, Old Time Fantasias stands among some of their best work. Like Branches & Leaves, the record boasts a bigness and a wealth of instrumentation that captures the full scope of Joseph’s songwriting capabilities. Unlike that album, Old Time Fantasias doesn’t dabble in Allred’s impeccable vocal works, staying true to the instrumental path, while wandering far from the guitar soli sojourns that have marked much of their past work.

A return for Scissor Tail, the first since 2016’s Fire and Earth, the album is meticulously orchestrated, and like another catalog highlight, What Strange Flowers In The Shade, the record shines in it’s willingness to collaborate. With some help from fellow RSTB fave Hans Chew, the album grew from the idea of having a few duets to a fully orchestrated album packed with piano touches, bass, fiddle, banjo and strings. Allred’s often monastic songwriting becomes something cinematic, classic; an album cured in country and swept up in the ecstatic joys and deep sorrows of Appalachia. But, if it were just rooted in the confines of country and folk, then perhaps this wouldn’t stand out among the Allred catalog so distinctly. “Moon Dance” is something else entirely, a nod to Talk Talk and Cocteau Twins that fits under the same sun-dyed skies as the rest of the album. There’s something progressive about the album, a quality that reconfigures folklore into the idea of passed traditions without borders and genre guardhouses. There are many entries into Allred’s world, but Old Time Fantasias offers up another excellent point of ingress.