Bonnie "Prince" Billy w/sg Lauren Premo
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We Are Together Again
However dimly we perceive it, we are living through a change of worlds. The one we were born into is slipping away, reshaped and denuded by human action. What remains is the question of what we will carry forward, and the manner in which we refuse to surrender ourselves. Will Oldham’s new album, We Are Together Again, feels like an answer to these questions.
In Oldham’s songs - and in the circle of others who’ve gathered beneath the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy on this endeavor - friendship, community, and the stubborn joy of making art with others become a means of persistence. This isn’t to say that the record is a denial of collapse, which would be delusion, so much as that models defiance by remaining fully human, fully joyful, in a world with a diminishing horizon... I’m talking about Oldham’s record, to be sure, but I think the answers he suggests in We Are Together Again speak to the only meaningful choices any of us can make at this point in all of the agonizing everything.
A sense of human beauty runs through everything here. Each voice remains distinct, yet folds into something larger. We Are Together Again doesn’t resolve fear; it meets it with harmony. It’s a record about the stubborn miracle of accompaniment. It’s about how we keep asking, and how, so long as there are voices to ask together, the asking itself becomes a kind of hope.
However dimly we perceive it, we are living through a change of worlds. The one we were born into is slipping away, reshaped and denuded by human action. What remains is the question of what we will carry forward, and the manner in which we refuse to surrender ourselves. Will Oldham’s new album, We Are Together Again, feels like an answer to these questions.
In Oldham’s songs - and in the circle of others who’ve gathered beneath the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy on this endeavor - friendship, community, and the stubborn joy of making art with others become a means of persistence. This isn’t to say that the record is a denial of collapse, which would be delusion, so much as that models defiance by remaining fully human, fully joyful, in a world with a diminishing horizon... I’m talking about Oldham’s record, to be sure, but I think the answers he suggests in We Are Together Again speak to the only meaningful choices any of us can make at this point in all of the agonizing everything.
A sense of human beauty runs through everything here. Each voice remains distinct, yet folds into something larger. We Are Together Again doesn’t resolve fear; it meets it with harmony. It’s a record about the stubborn miracle of accompaniment. It’s about how we keep asking, and how, so long as there are voices to ask together, the asking itself becomes a kind of hope.
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Where is it happening?
316 S Main St, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, Michigan 48104
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherThe Ark - Ann Arbor
