Brother Dege has published a stream of his new album, Scorched Earth Policy: Deluxe Edition, the follow-up to 2013’s How To Kill A Horse.
Dege is perhaps best known for Too Old To Die Young, a track taken from his first album, Folk Songs Of The American Longhair, which featured on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained soundtrack. “Frankly, every track on the Brother Dege CD could have been in the movie,” says Tarantino. “It works and has a badass score sound to it. Almost every song could be a theme song. It’s like a greatest hits album.”
Scorched Earth Policy was first released last year as a digital mixtape containing a selection of studio songs, demos, covers and field recordings, but has now been turned into a studio album featuring four new studio tracks. Dege says the album turns his “Delta, sonic-slide sound into the psyouthern, psych swamposphere.”
“Scorched Earth Policy (Deluxe) is like a party record for misanthropes,” says Dege. “Or a comedown for the unicorn crowd. It’s a continuation of the psyouthern mutation - double droning slide guitars, tribal drums, low end - where we pull southern rock further away from the flashy guitar lick thing as well as the cultural trappings of the past…and more toward the rural psychedelic landscape we grew up around.
“This is album is more about future sonic exploration, and not so much care taking any folk roots traditions. It’s about not getting stuck doing the same thing you’ve been doing. I like to keep moving. Forward and backward at the same time. It’s like getting in a time machine and grinding the gears…just to see where the songs take you. People are really down on the south right now, because of the Confederate flag stuff…but what they don’t realise is…there’s so many of us down here that are WAY past that…and even further along the multicultural highway of love and equality than our brethren to the north.
“I see a lot more segregation up north than I do in the Deep South. This record is repping southern hemispheres around the world - not just the southern US - where people tend to be more free spirited, wear less clothes, live on the water, and simply thrive in the heat.”
Scorched Earth Policy: Deluxe Edition is released on July 24. Folk Songs Of The American Longhair and How To Kill A Horse were both released on vinyl on July 10.
Tour dates
Jul 21: Grand Victory, Brooklyn, NY Jul 24: 10th Avenue Burrito: Belmar, NJ Jul 25: Shepherdstown Opera House: Shepherdstown, WV Aug 03: WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville Visitors Center: Knoxville, TN Aug 04: Sleepy Owl Brewery: Kingsport, TN Aug 05 Awendaw Green Barn Jam: Awendaw, SC Aug 06: Rusty Rudder: Mt. Pleasant, SC Aug 07: Palmetto Brewing Dock Series: Charleston, SC Aug 08: L L Creek Bar: Waycross, GA Aug 21: Blue Moon Saloon: Lafayette, LA
