Digging up musical bones: Isakov searches the archives for records | Art & Events

On his latest album, “Appaloosa Bones,” Colorado-based singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov creates pop-up boom towns and foggy villages, filling their main streets and outskirts with residents who are as comfortable in the neon glow of last night as they were in the moonlight 150 years ago.

Produced by Isakov and Andrew Berlin and featuring guest performances by Aoife O'Donovan and longtime collaborator Bonnie Paine (Elephant Revival), Appaloosa Bones benefits from Isakov's sensitive waves of rolling keys and outstanding acoustic guitar sounds.

Originally intended as a more challenging venture in the same valley as 2018's Evening Machines, Isakov climbs stories of earth, air, fire and water that manifest like the seasons.

“A lot of my lyrics are about these characters, about this world that I'm writing from, where the land is a living thing and all these elements are alive,” Isakov said in a recent interview, reflecting on the album's evolution from dreamy indie to epic folk.

“Every time I'm like, 'I'm going to make this kind of record,' or I hear a record that's so inspiring and I'm like, 'Yeah, I want to make a record like that,' and then the songs just tell you what to do. And they're like, '(Expletive) you, I don't care what you think! Now we're going to make a super sleepy B-sides record and you have no say in it,'” Isakov said, laughing.

“Appaloosa Bones” was recorded at Isakov’s home studio on his Starling Farm in Boulder County, Colorado, and was partially completed by songs that had been written over the decades and were simply waiting to find their place on an album.

“Songwriting is one of those things that I've never found to be evolutionary. It's not like you write a great song that works and now you're good at it and you can write another song,” said Isakov, who has released eight albums in his 20-year career. “Each time you're on a trip again – and that's what I love about it. Time is fleeting and if you spend a little time thinking about what you think is great, you'll find the truth. I think that's why it takes me so long. It's not really the writing or the recording. I do that pretty quickly. I write a lot and it's more the time I spend not listening and then coming back and thinking, 'All right, am I still feeling something here?'”

The banjo and harmonies-led “Before The Sun” is a song that dates back to Isakov’s early twenties.

“A lot of the songs on this record were kind of old songs, or at least the core of it was old,” said Isakov, 44. “I changed the oil and took out the high school journal vibes, but I really wanted to honor some of the songs that I just play for myself all the time. I didn't know if anyone would like that, but I really wanted to look at all of that, and [‘Before The Sun’] is one of those who made it. It was that assessment that came back, that assessment, 'Do I feel anything else? Oh, yes, yes, I do! I guess this is going to work.'”

With Watchman, Isakov offers a tragic love story reminiscent of sepia-toned Appalachian murder ballads, although its inspiration comes from far more immediate dangers.

“I run this farm full-time with two other people and we have sheep. In the winter when I'm home from touring, we have a big coyote problem. I hadn't prepared fences and stuff for them yet, so on the really bad nights, I would stay up all night with a flashlight because we kept losing lambs. So this song was originally the 'coyote' song. I wrote it in the middle of the night just sitting awake listening to the coyotes and running out with this really strong flashlight. I think a lot of that went into the song, but it became a song about how we're always trying to fix things – relationships, systems, everything – and sometimes things that are just broken end up being perfect.”

Faced with the juxtaposition of his life as an artist (“I never thought I would do this professionally,” he said) and his first passion, farming, Isakov readily accepts this apparent contradiction.

“Making music is a completely unnatural, bizarre lifestyle,” Isakov said. “You start working when everyone else goes to bed. It's contradictory on so many levels. I think the people who do it have to do it, because it's a tremendous effort to live your life like that, especially when you're trying to maintain relationships, manage your creative process and make time to daydream and all these things that are essential to that. It's a difficult path.”

But it's a path worth the occasional stumble nonetheless. The title track, “Appaloosa Bones,” harks back to Isakov's early days as an artist.

“I imagined myself at the end of my rope, like I had nothing left and something was going to get me through, and in the story, that's a horse. When I was growing up, we played at this bar in Denver called the Appaloosa Grill, and it's funny because that's where the band and I played, it was like our rental gig. We played there, I don't know, a hundred times a year or something,” Isakov recalled. “We didn't have enough songs. It was a three-hour set, and we all had other jobs. I was also doing farm work and landscaping, so I would drive to Denver after work, and it was like dinner and a couple hundred dollars and we all split it.”

“We had enough songs for the first set, then we played a couple of covers and then repeated our first one in the third set, hoping there was enough variety so no one would notice,” he said. “After a year or two, we had enough songs to fill the whole set, and I think that time was so important for us as a band to learn how to interact with each other on stage, make music together and give the songs as much space as we can. That was what I had in mind when [“Appaloosa Bones”]. That was the decision of that particular character.”

Another highlight, “Feed Your Horses,” is a candidate for song of the year. It recalls Fred Eaglesmith's diesel emotionalism, the “agricultural tragedy” of Corb Lund, and the brittle but devoted heart of Gary Stewart's best laments. The tale of vulnerability and unrequited love is an album highlight, carried by a lush atmosphere that still recalls Isakov's original, leaner bent for the “Appaloosa Bones” album.

“I just love old country songs. They're fun to write, and I wrote this one when I was recording with Brandi Carlile. I went to Seattle to get her vocals for my record 'This Empty Northern Hemisphere' and she was like, 'Gregory, I'll be back, but I have interviews all day,' and she had just released 'The Story,' I think it's one of her bigger records. So I was just hanging out on her property. She was like, 'Can you feed the horses while I'm gone?' So I said, 'That's such a country song!' I was in her barn with a bunch of old guitars and I was like, 'OK, yeah, I'm going to do that today!'”