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PRICE:
$25.00
LOW STOCK LEVEL
3-4 Weeks
ARTIST
TITLE
Cordelia
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
BAR 031LP BAR 031LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
9/5/2025

"Ethan Daniel Davidson's thirteenth studio album finds the veteran singer-songwriter exploring new creative territory while continuing down the beguiling and wondrous road that his discography has charted thus far. Cordelia is as lush and deeply felt as Davidson's music has ever been, with countrified balladry and unvarnished blues accompanying this journeyman's philosophical explorations and ruminations on his past, present, and future. Cordelia follows 2022's Stranger, which marked both a conclusion and a new beginning after a decade-plus of fruitful creative collaboration with Warren Defever of experimental rock legends His Name Is Alive. Davidson headed down south to link up with the North Mississippi Allstars frontman to shape the seven songs that became Cordelia -- a collection that takes a left-turn from the darkly shaded textures of Stranger and was sonically inspired by Davidson's love for the raw blues records that storied label Fat Possum were releasing in the 1090s. Joining Davidson and Dickinson on Cordelia: bassist and Emmylou Harris collaborator Byron House, drummer Marco Giovino (Robert Plant, John Cale), and multi-instrumentalist Rayfield 'Ray Ray' Holloman, who contributed pedal steel and piano across the record. Cordelia sounds robust and thoroughly lived-in, so the average listener might find it surprising to learn that Davidson and the band put these songs to tape within the span of three days total. As with Davidson's estimable catalogue, his lyricism is front and center across Cordelia, expressing his own specific worldview in a way that's informed by his Jewish faith as well as the tenets of Buddhism. The album's namesake is inspired by the titular daughter featured in Shakespeare's classic tragedy King Lear, who Davidson finds a sense of personal kinship with. The refrain of Cordelia's swooning penultimate track 'Along in the Wind and the Rain' borrows from the song that the play's fool sings, and within this mirroring Davidson reflects on his own travels as a human being amidst his life's experiences."