Steve Gunn's music thrives on exploration, but in order to explore, you must get lost. That's where mistakes and epiphanies coexist as equals, and where discoveries are made. In the past two years, the guitarist has collaborated with the likes of Black Twig Pickers and Mike Cooper on two different rewarding records, but he returns with a full band to the singer-songwriter mold with Eyes On The Lines.
"Conditions Wild" is the first single from the album, and it retains Gunn's signature breeziness, but it's also the most accessible song he's written to date. Chiming electric guitars shuffle and tangle through a sunny rhythm section, and Gunn's soft tenor glides overhead: "It's a field guide from the other side / Beyond the path you know." He sounds more confident in his singing voice than ever.
Director Brandon Herman illustrates the accompanying video by taking the song's primary inspiration, Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide To Getting Lost, and bringing a field guide to life. Gunn is our intrepid explorer, but in a mythological cut-and-paste frontier where he arm-wrestles a bear, crosses a body of water with ancient ruins, and chills with Bigfoot by the campfire.
Eyes On The Lines comes out June 3 on Matador. Steve Gunn goes on a three-month tour of Europe and the U.S. starting April 8.
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