Hudson Freeman came to my attention at the end of last year, when the Pitchfork critic-turned-music producer Nick Sylvester wrote about him in a Substack post called “This is the song I shared most last year.” Sylvester wrote about a “demo” version of Freeman’s song “If You Know Me” that went viral on Instagram, which is less a demo than a lo-fi live performance video shot in a Southern Indiana cornfield. “His guitar is hiked up high, and you can see the bottom three strings visibly vibrate when he strums them – perhaps because of some esoteric tuning, but either way it completes the hillbilly vibe,” Sylvester wrote.
The guitar playing is formidable — virtuosic in a raw, folksy way — and yes, the strings are tuned so low that they sound like they’re summoning ancient frequencies. As for Freemans vocals, I’m told some people were referring to this as “country Nirvana“? It’s easy to see why this mesmerizing take on the song took off. Sylvester saw it on IG, but the YouTube upload has 134,000 views. Here, add one more:
Then, in February, Ryan Dombal profiled Freeman at Hearing Things, calling him “the Indie-Rock Philosopher Who Happened to Go Viral.” Guys who were writing for Pitchfork 20 years ago can’t get enough of this kid! Also a fan: John Mayer, who posted footage of himself playing the “If You Know Me” riff:
Freeman, I learned in Dombal’s piece, is the son of evangelical Christian missionaries who moved with his parents from the Dallas suburbs to the Kingdom of Eswatini at age 13, before “falling out of evangelicalism and finding his own way to faith.” Now he’s out here playing scrappy, blustery, folk-tinged indie rock songs like “I-40,” the single he released last month for new label home Mom+Pop. It sounds a bit like Sufjan Stevens for the Hotline TNT/Horse Jumper Of Love era. I like it.
This week he announced his new album Doom Country, the follow-up to last year’s Is A Folk Artist. It’s coming out soon, just five weeks from now, and it has Freeman’s wife, the poet Sophie Brown, on the cover, wearing overalls, standing amongst cows. New single “Fell Ass Backwards” is basically a duet with Brown, who harmonizes all over it and costars in director Aidan Nolan’s video. Unlike Freeman, she does not have her head all bandaged up.
“Fell ass backwards into God’s strange light,” they sing. “Stole his secret password, broke into his mind/ Left back, rapture, slipped through holy skies/ Thought we’d get there faster, tried to cut the line.” The song is an excellent slice of noisy, glittering, post-Alex G indie rock, and you can sample it below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Left Behind”
02 “I-40”
03 “Texas in Flaming Tongues”
04 “Turning Green”
05 “Wrong Side”
06 “Doom Country”
07 “Fell Ass Backwards”
08 “Celebration City”
09 “10.08.22”
10 “Western”
11 “Deus Ex Machina”
TOUR DATES:
10/05 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
10/06 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
10/16 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle *
10/17 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed *
10/18 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theater and Ballroom *
10/20 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE *
10/21 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem *
10/23 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met *
10/24 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner *
10/26 – Columbus, OH @ Kemba Live! *
11/06 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom – RECORD RELEASE SHOW
02/11 – Milan, IT @ Arci Belleza
02/14 – Paris, FR @ Les Étoiles
02/15 – Utrecht, NL @ De Helling
02/16 – Cologne, DE @ Yard Club
02/18 – Copenhagen, DK @ Ideal Bar
02/19 – Berlin, DE @ Hole44
02/20 – Groningen, NL @ Vera
02/21 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique – Rotonde
02/23 – London, UK @ Earth Theatre
02/24 – Brighton, UK @ Komedia
02/25 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
02/26 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
02/27 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
03/01 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tut’s
03/02 – Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
03/03 – Belfast, UK @ Ulster Sports Club
Doom Country is out 11/6 on Mom+Pop. Pre-order it here.
