Refugia Blues, the fifth album from songwriter Nick Shoulders, is a record of big ideas and small, intimate moments. Rooted in the acoustic stylings of Southern traditional music, it finds the Arkansas native turning off his amp and stepping up to a ribbon microphone as a solo performer, singing in a voice that's equal parts country croon, Appalachian yodel, and high-lonesome field holler. Shoulders' interpretation of American roots music has always been more progressive and punky than the trucks-and-beers conservatism that passes for modern-day country, and Refugia Blues offers songs about climate collapse, radical anthropology, and generative disruption. It balances the macro with the micro, too, making room for love songs and personal topics, packaging humor alongside heavy insights. At once academic and accessible, Refugia Blues isn't just a deep dive into southernness, but also into Shoulders himself. This is a raw, resolute version of American country music, stacked high with songs that go down easy but linger in the minds of those willing to invest the time.
Shoulders has been outspoken in questioning the culture of modern country music. In a 2020 article for In These Times, he criticized "fake twang" — the imitation of the Southern accent by musicians who are not from the American South — considering this practice symptomatic of the close association between mainstream country music, whiteness, and conservatism in the United States. This association, he argued, failed to "acknowledge the diverse and complicated origin of these uniquely American musical forms," as well as the diversity of the rural United States as a whole, and he expressed the aspiration to help make country music "more accessible and more welcoming to people outside of the white rural experience."
Shoulders was one of the few country singers to call out the racism Beyoncé faced when her country album Cowboy Carter came out.
If you've ever been a place where failure is assured, hardship is welcomed, and the water's never quite clear: you've been to the Gar Hole. Begun in the ashes of pre-COVID Arkansas, Gar Hole Records is the combined brains and brawn of Fayetteville cassette master Kurt DeLashmet and certified Grampa Music enthusiast Nick Shoulders, established in fall of 2020 to bring you lovingly tailored tunes for the UnAmericana fan in all of us. See y'all at the bottom.
