How To Kill A Horse, Brother Dege, LP

Recorded at night in an empty warehouse (while he worked at a men's homeless shelter during the day), Brother Dege's second album "How to Kill a Horse" is a tour de force artwork that ranges from barn burners to ancient Delta meditations to Babylonian junkyard jams that explore the dark underbelly of what it is to be a man in the modern world. Influences include: Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Ry Cooder, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Sonic Youth, Black Sabbath, Blind Willie Johnson, Einstürzende Neubauten, Jackson Pollock and Don Quixote. Like Hemingway at his finest, "How to Kill a Horse" goes deep into the prison rodeo of man's heart, confronting the darker, flawed side of the self while going full-aggro in the existential blast furnace of the modern world, wrestling with men's roles as providers, protectors, partners, lovers, warriors, peacekeepers, whatever. "How to Kill a Horse" is a massive shot across the bow to riff heads, songwriters, and Americana enthusiasts around the world. It's a game changer that launches the whole mess of roots music out of the vinyl dustbins and into the 21st century.