During the 2020 pandemic, US singer-songwriter Kevin Morby almost got stuck in Australia.
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Morby → stick → Australia
As quarantines tightened, he found himself in Melbourne before it had some of the world's toughest lockdowns.
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it → tighten → lockdowns
He didn't panic.
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He → panic → ?
Instead, he remembers thinking:
"If I have to start a new life, this is a pretty good place to do so."
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this → remember → life
He has become acquainted with Australia's bigger cities over multiple visits.
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He → become → visits
"Feel[ing] like, 'Oh, I know where I'm at.
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I → feel[e → where
I know this neighbourhood — I love that one restaurant!
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I → know → restaurant
It's nice," he tells Double J's Henry Wagons.
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he → tell → Wagons
That moment of acceptance speaks to something essential about Morby, a folk-rock journeyman who finds belonging and meaning in transit.
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who → speak → transit
That philosophy feels more relevant than ever as Morby returns to tour Australia next month, supporting his latest album Little Wide Open.
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Morby → feel → album
Following a discography inspired by adopted homes — Laurel Canyon (2016's Singing Saw), New York (2017's City Music), Memphis (2022's This Is A Photograph) — Morby's eighth solo album heads back to the Missouri farmlands and Kansas City suburbs where he grew up.
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he → follow → farmlands
It's all these emotions and a lot of them come out on this record.
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lot → come → record
Little Wide Open conjures rich imagery: fields of sunflowers and June bugs, late-night bars and long highways stretching into flat horizons dominated by wide open skies.
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Open → conjure → skies
Porchside strumming and finger-picking score vivid portraits of "anywhere America" on songs with names like Cowtown and Bible Belt.
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strumming → score → Cowtown
Small-town iconography and spangling riffs power 100,000, before a guitar explodes like a Fourth of July firecracker over the song's climax.
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guitar → spangle → climax
These tunes, built from tried-and-true chords and Morby's humble Dylanesque voice, romanticise the comforts of small towns but equally yearn to escape them for something larger.
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tunes → build → something
"I don't mean that in a derogatory sense.
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I → mean → sense
There's a quality of life, your money goes further, things like that.
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money → be → that
"I feel if you use the time and space and the boredom to your advantage, those don't have to necessarily be bad things."
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those → feel → advantage
You can hear the influence of Morby's "big five": Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Nina Simone, and Townes Van Zandt.
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You → hear → five
as well as the "rootsy, heartland rock and roll" Morby was immersed in making the record.
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Morby → immerse → record
I bought this pick-up truck with a free subscription to satellite radio.
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I → buy → radio
Part of that was the Tom Petty radio station and I just got super into him.
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I → get → him
He also cites the album World Without Tears by legendary artist Lucinda Williams, who provides a drawling, cautionary spoken word on stand-out track Natural Disaster.
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who → cite → track
"I wanted this voice-of-God thing to come in.
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thing → want → God
I was so thrilled when she said she'd do it."
Williams isn't Little Wide Open's only notable guest.
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Williams → say → it
In a sign of how esteemed Morby is among his peers, the album also features Bon Iver's Justin Vernon (emulating a tornado siren on rustic opener Badlands), backing vocals from MUNA's Katie Gavin, and players from Florence + The Machine, Perfume Genius, Sylvan Esso and Hand Habits.
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album → feature → Florence
Fresh from producing blockbuster records for Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, Dessner recorded Little Wide Open at his studio in upstate New York.
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Dessner → produce → York
"He made the songs feel big and dense in their ways without distracting the story or the vocal," Morby explains.
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Morby → make → story
"He really kept my vocal front and centre.
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He → keep → vocal
It felt like I was standing a little bit naked on these recordings, but I think it benefited the album in the end.
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it → feel → end
And really believed in these songs through moments where maybe I wasn't believing in them …
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I → believe → them
'Kevin, you gotta let these songs breathe.'
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songs → got → ?
Dessner's fingerprints are all over Junebug, with its gossamer guitars and piano decorated by oboe and harp.
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fingerprints → decorate → oboe
But those flourishes never overshadow Morby.
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flourishes → overshadow → Morby
"Sometimes the myth grows bigger than the dream" he sings on the swooning title track, where banjo, slide guitar and fiddle comfortably sprawl past the eight-minute mark.
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banjo → grow → mark
Getting older (and better)
Little Wide Open is also charged by Morby "looking down the barrel of 40," and the sense of life moving too fast.
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life → get → 40
Am I a husband?" he sings ruefully amid the otherwise upbeat Javelin.
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he → sing → Javelin
Nearly cut for being too vulnerable, the lyric was prompted by impending parenthood.
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lyric → cut → parenthood
Morby recently welcomed his first child alongside his musician-partner Katie Crutchfield, better known as alt-country favourite Waxahatchee.
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Morby → welcome → Waxahatchee
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia