Shane Butler is a member of the great New England psych/folk/pop/rock band Quilt, which technically still exists per Wikipedia but hasn't released any music in a decade. After Quilt's most recent album Plaza dropped in 2016, Butler teamed with Caity Shaffer in the similarly oriented duo Olden Yolk. Now, after a seven-year absence, he's back under his own name.
Butler's debut solo album Heavy Debt will emerge in December via his own label Peal Music. Whereas Quilt steered their sound toward jangly '60s pop-rock, Heavy Debt's lead single "Ringfinger" is more of a straight-up folk-rock track, accented with a hearty dose of melody that reminds me of Britpop acts like the Verve. The song is full of memorable lyrics, from "I saw it written on a $20 bill/ You've gotta learn how to love, figure out how to kill" to "Read it once in a fishing magazine/ ‘Loosen your grip to pursue your dream.’" You should hear it.
Butler's statement on the track:
This was the last song written for the album. I finished it in a hotel room in Brooklyn the night before we began recording. This song is about the confusion surrounding loss. How the magnitude of experience when we lose someone in our life is so all-encompassing we often lose sight of what’s happening. What we’re left with is just little snip-bits of our life with them, and the small things that remind us of them daily. This song is probably the closest I’ve gotten to emulating the way my mind experiences loss. How it goes through stages of grief, misunderstanding, and also bouts of laughter / humor in it all.
Below, watch director Cooper Kenward's "Ringfinger" video.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Devotee"
02 "Heroine"
03 "Winter In Hyderabad"
04 "Fisher Price Royalty"
05 "Ringfinger"
06 "Horne"
07 "Don’t Get Too Comfortable"
08 "The Mitten"
09 "Heavy Debt"
10 "An Open Design"
11 "Chimney Lime"
TOUR DATES:
12/03 - New York, NY @ Public Records (w/ Silk Fence)
12/16 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon (w/ Mary Lattimore)
Heavy Debt is out 12/4 via Peal Music. Pre-order it here.
