Gurf Morlix – Fishin’ In The Muddy

Gurf Morlix, the self-named producer and sideman for everyone, can, it turns out, write like a mother, sing like a mother: in short, deliver like a mother. Alt-country/folk-rock in the vein of once or future Gurflings such as Buddy & Julie Miller and Lucinda Williams, this album also has a peculiar sensibility: head utterly in the tradition, and feet utterly on the ground. It’s not pretty, but it’s beautiful, if you get me.

From the look-you-made-me-get-a-tattoo opener “Torn In Two”, to the anti-diva anthem “Center Of The Universe” (“Tell me what it’s like in the center of the universe”), to the worn blues of “I’m Hungry And I’m Cold”, Morlix displays mastery of the tradition and also the ability to extend it. The lyric of “I’m Hungry And I’m Cold”, for example, refers to the fact that the tale’s already been told innumerable times. That’s a deft way to gesture in the direction of the permanence of human suffering and endurance, and it increases the sense of exhaustion that is the song’s theme. But in concert with the melody, it connects the song with decades of country and blues music.

The song is not just a re-enactment; it refers to the tradition from here: It could only have been written now. That’s true in some sense of everything on the album, and so Fishin’ In The Muddy not only embodies but extends the form. In short, it’s a definitive document of living country music.