For those unaware, Robbie Fulks is a fiercely independent voice in American music, blending the raw spirit of punk with the storytelling tradition of country and Americana.

Variety Magazine calls him one of the best singer-songwriters in American roots music over the last 25 years — and “one of the best writers in America, period.”

On his new release, Now Then, Fulks offers an introspective look at his life’s journey, from his Appalachian upbringing through the experiences that brought him to Los Angeles, where he has lived since 2018. Fulks said: “These songs came out of my feelings about the specific environment of Los Angeles and, more generally, the outlook of older age. I moved to L.A. when I was fifty-five and soon fell in with new musicians and friends. I excitedly imagined how these folks would sound on the songs and tried to musicalize and shape the oddments of my mind as they emerged — anxieties, amusements, dread, scenes of family life, and childhood. Listening back to it now, I’d say it reveals my present psychological profile to be 70% pensive, 20% droll, and 10% angry.”

Fulks produced the album, recorded at Jackson Browne’s Santa Monica studio, Groove Masters, by Sheldon Gomberg. Tucker Martine (Roseanne Cash, My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists) mixed. The musicians on the project include Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello) and Jay Bellerose on drums, Jenny Scheinman on fiddle, Kevin Barry and Duke Levine (Bonnie Raitt) on guitar, Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann) and Kimon Kirke on bass, and Wayne Horvitz on keys.

1. Workin’ No More Blues [3:04]
2. Ocean City [5:47]
3. Now Now Now Now Now [3:32]
4. There’s A Man [3:18]
5. That Was Juarez, This Is Alpine [4:54]
6. Savannah Is A Devilish Girl [3:31]
7. Your Tormentors [4:12]
8. My Heart, Your Hands [3:34]
9. The Thirty-Year Marriage [3:47]
10. Poor And Sharp Witted [3:56]
11. Ol’ Folks [4:15]
12. Nobody Cares [2:43]

Having gained national recognition as a key artist in the alt-country scene during the 1990s, Fulks opens his authentically heartfelt new recording on the impassioned Workin’ No More Blues and the pleasing Ocean City and then we get the gentle guitar rocker Now Now Now Now Now, the free flowing There’s A Man, before we are gifted the acoustically mellow That Was Juarez, This Is Alpine and the banjo-hued joy of Savannah Is A Devilish Girl.

Along next is the atmospherically-charged Your Tormentors and the quietly moving My Heart, Your Hands and they are in turn backed by the dulcet storytelling of The Thirty-Year Marriage, the optimistically buoyant Poor And Sharp Witted, the set rounding out on a lonesome yearn that drives Ol’ Folks, coming to a close on the smoothly crafted easiness of Nobody Cares.

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