Ahead of and throughout her writing sessions for Mud Blood Bone, Clyde looked to her indigenous Métis roots and invoked a deep reverence for nature in efforts to redefine her relationship with love in her life. Learning from the natural world, she took solace in its cyclicality.
The new songs exude nomadic independence: penned in her 1973 Boler trailer on a farm in Ontario, on a narrow boat in England, or in transit from one festival to another, letting lyrics stream freely from a jetlagged dream state. The result is uninhibited, raw, pure; it’s the sound of personal truth discovered in real time.
With I Hope We Can Still Be Friends, his debut for Saddle Creek, Dean Johnson makes a pact with the listener: He will sing you his truth in the most heartfelt and charming way possible, if you promise to keep an open mind.
The title partly stems from the playful way the Seattle-based singer, songwriter and guitarist communes with his audiences at concerts. “I hope you’re not afraid to talk to me after the show,” he’ll say, sweetly, before launching into “Death of the Party,” the album’s seventh song. Centered on the “energy vampire” archetype — the exasperating windbag we’ve all encountered at some point — its lyrics are at once intellectually biting and unmistakably hilarious. His tender voice rings out like the ghost of Roy Orbison or a misfit Everly brother.
“Words don’t come easily to me / I notice you don’t have that problem / It sounds to me you cannot stop them,” Johnson sings over acoustic guitar strumming, and gentle bass and drums, like the narrator in a dark comedy whose coming-of-age misadventures have made for an excellent film.
Johnson spent years tending bar at Al’s Tavern in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. There, he encountered folks of all stripes; and regulars enthusiastically murmured about his budding musical greatness — There’s the best songwriter in town! Johnson was a kind of local lore, a long-held family secret, before the singer finally broke out in 2023 with his debut album, Nothing For Me Please, at age 50.
