The bold strokes and new turns the pair made with 2010's Saint Bartlett are taken even further. He throws open the gate on his oft insular dirges and allows them do some real wilding out in the canyon. The strummed desert blues that begin "Nothing is the News" quickly bursts open into an Eddie Hazel-worthy supernova shred session, all of it swirling in tinny-psych and Echoplex'd howls. We've never heard anything like this from Jurado. Fifteen years into his remarkable career, and he continues to blossom. Jurado and Swift establish themselves not only as inventive, trusting collaborators, but as one another's spirit animals in American outsider songcraft —lone wolves in black sheep's clothing. Swift is the Ennio Morricone to Jurado's Sergio Leone.

At Swift's National Freedom studios, the live-to-tape ethos allowed these songs to expand and retract like a great beast's breath. And from this, each song offers up its own unique gift: the enchanting children's choir that echoes each line of Jurado's lament for innocence lost on "Life Away from the Garden"; the breezy bossa nova that begins "This Time Next Year" and rises as effortless as a smoke cloud into high-noon showdown pop; "Reel to Reel"'s wobbly, Spector-symphony and its meta themes; the wonderful falsetto vocal work Jurado pulls from himself on "Museum of Flight." The Seattle Times recently called Jurado "Seattle's folk-boom godfather," a praising recognition to be sure. The gate is opened wide to allow us all into his once-isolated musical universe. One gets the sense he's just now hitting his stride.

In 2006 Seattle’s Rocky Votolato released a record of stripped down, country-influenced folk called Makers on indie stalwart Barsuk Records. The album went on to be lauded by both the main stream and indie press, with E! calling it “simply beautiful” and No Depression declaring it “surpassingly great.” In the five years since the records release Votolato has toured the country nearly endlessly, playing everything from rock clubs to living rooms. Along the way he released two more albums (2007’s The Brag & Cuss and 2011’s True Devotion,) both also critically praised and well received by a steadily growing group of dedicated fans.