Despite its name, old-fashioned americana is a genre without borders. Remember when you found out that folk troubadour The Tallest Man on Earth was Swedish?
The Last Hurrah!! will give induce a similar kind of double-take. The smooth vocal stylings of LA’s Maesa Pullman are undeniably rootsy, but what’s more impressive is the mastery displayed by the project’s creator: Norway’s Hans Petter Gundersen. On his new album Mudflowers, Gundersen coaxes dreamy, melodic whines from the lap steel, rugged, dusty blues licks from an electric guitar, and warbly chords from a gospel organ as Pullman croons along with a smokey, mellifluous voice.
The slow, gentle waltz of opener “Okay” is proof enough that the collaboration was a pretty great idea. Even the slow-burning, swaggering blues rock jam of “You Soothe Me” is downright, well, soothing.
Stream Mudflowers in its entirety below.
Here’s what the duo had to say about the record:
Hans Petter Gundersen:
It was a fantastic experience to work on the kind of material that is so heavy influenced by all kinds of American music that I have loved from a long distance my whole life. And doing it in collaboration with such a magical vocal performer as Maesa Pullman and also her cousin, the great Rosa Pullman who sings on two tracks… the combination of the great American musicians from LA and my musical friends in Norway came out as something really special.
Maesa Pullman:
Singing on Mudflowers was like taking my experience in Americana and flipping it inside out then blowing it up like a polaroid picture turned ten feet tall. I hope listeners get into the dramatic crevasses of the album and feel free to be swept away by the strange psychedelia of it while connecting with some lost sense of home—that was my experience with making it.
Mudflowers is out now.
