Buffalo Nichols
Mineral Point Opera House 139 High St., Mineral Point, Wisconsin 53565
Sachyn Mital
A person sitting in a chair.
Buffalo Nichols
media release: In June, Buffalo Nichols announced that his new album The Fatalist will be released on September 15 via Fat Possum, and shared the album's lead single–a dusky take on Blind Willie Johnson's original "You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond": https://youtu.be/
On his self-produced second album, Nichols does things with the blues that might catch you off guard. There’s a consideration of the fullness of the sonic stage and the atmospherics of blues music that can only come with a long engagement with electronic music. But this is no gimmicky hybrid or attempt to turn the blues into 21st century music by simply dressing it with skittering hi-hats.
“In a lot of ways I was improvising,” he says, and he leaned on his years of experience as a DIY musician—and the songs themselves—to guide him. “Drum machines are a 50-year-old technology. If the blues hadn’t been hijacked and trapped in amber, I think they naturally would’ve been incorporated.” The drum programming throughout feels like a natural rhythmic vehicle for these songs. “When you pick up a guitar, the first thing you’re gonna play is the blues,” he says. “And when you pick up an 808, you’re gonna start doing trap beats.”
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