Folk singer Jake Xerxes Fussell is returning in June with Out Of Sight, the follow-up to his 2017 album What In The Natural World. A collection of traditional narrative folk songs of various origins, Out Of Sight is Fussell’s first album to feature a full backing band, with Nathan Bowles on drums, Casey Toll on bass, Nathan Golub on pedal steel, Libby Rodenbough on violin, and Wallace on keys.

We’ve heard one song from the upcoming album so far, “The River St. Johns.” And today, Fussell has shared another track, a lovely, rambling rendition of “Michael Was Hearty.” Says Fussell:

I first heard the Irish tragicomedy “Michael Was Hearty” via my pal Nathan Salsburg, guitar wizard and curator of the Alan Lomax Archive, who played me a YouTube video of an Irish Traveller and ballad singer named Thomas McCarthy, whose a cappella delivery of the song is striking and singular. I immediately wanted to commit the words to memory, but I had to come up with another way to perform it that worked for my way of singing, so I worked out a waltz arrangement on my guitar and taught it to my band. Some great imagery in there too: “High was the step in the jig that he sprung / He had good looks and soothering tongue” — don’t we all know somebody like that? This one dates to probably sometime around the end of the 1800s.

Listen below.

Out Of Sight is out 6/7 via Paradise Of Bachelors. Pre-order it here.