Bonnie “Prince” Billy – the persona/stage-name of musician Will Oldham - will release his new studio recordWe Are Together Again this Friday March 6th and today shares the final pre-release single from the album: “Life is Scary Horses.”
The song – which Oldham describes as a “spiritual cover” of the Sally Timms / Jon Langford composition “Horses” - comes accompanied by a video directed by filmmaker Braden King. Timms sings on the track and appears in the video.
Oldham says: “A primary reason to cover a song comes from the unanswered questions the song poses in our individual or collective psyches, and I have mulled “Horses”-generated questions over and over and over again in all sorts of circumstances until finally I thought I could bring those questions to life in a new composition, a new recording, of what can technically and essentially be called a new song.”
King directed the video for Oldham’s 2004 cover of “Horses” (from the album Greatest Palace Music) and the two have known each other even longer. Of the new work, King says: “This piece carries long memory. Will and I have been moving in and out of each other’s orbits for over half my life - his friendship, collaboration and music - along with Sally Timms’ own – are woven into me. Somehow, making this felt less like creating something new than uncovering something that had been waiting a long time to surface. It’s a message assembled from fragments; landscapes and symbols gathered from a world that’s slipping away and what remains when certainty is gone. As it evolved, the piece itself began to feel like a relic: an elegy left behind for a future that might not remember us – or maybe one that might be trying to learn who we were.”
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Life is Scary Horses (Official Video)
Oldham adds: “I have worked with Braden for a few decades now, our slow burns aligning just enough to remain aware that King is one of many life-saving flotation devices in human form that I am privileged to collaborate with.”
In addition to Timms backing vocals, the track also features strings arranged by Oldham’s cousin Ryder McNair and whistling by Thomas Deakin.
We Are Together Again - recorded at End of an Ear Studios in Louisville, Kentucky – is very much a collaborative album. Oldham says “As the first few songs from this record have trickled out (strategically), I’m struck by an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards many people and many circumstances. The people that built this beast with me, musically, are the finest to live among.”
We Are Together Again is available to pre-order on limited transparent vinyl (+ exclusive art print via DomMart), standard vinyl, CD (+ poster) and digitally. Pre-order: DomMart | Digital