Like many singer-songwriters, Joe Pug keeps his career afloat by touring incessantly. However, four consecutive years on the road left the Austin native exhausted and contemplating retirement. With sessions for his third album looming, Pug made the decision to take a sabbatical, heading home to recuperate and rediscover his love of live music. Finally recharged, he booked studio time in mid-2014 to begin work on the follow-up to 2012’s The Great Despiser.
Due out March 10th via Lightning Rod Records, the resulting Windfall LP sees Pug face his hardships head-on, as he attempts to “journey further down the highway despite the gloom that seems certain to overtake him.” That dynamic is best exemplified by album opener “Bright Beginnings”: As lush piano and understated guitar create a pristine soundscape, Pug unfurls his struggle to “keep the flame burning” in an increasingly dark and unstable world. Listen in below.
“When you’re sort of pushing through a dark period of your life it’s probably inevitable that some of that is going to find its way onto the page,” Pug says in a statement. “But in the same way, by the time we were in the studio the process had become very effortless and joyful. And hopefully you can hear a lot of that on the record as well.”
