Boyd Shropshire

Queens-based Boyd Shropshire (Human Television, Kurt Vile, Slow Country) has been quietly crafting his own brand of hallucinatory pop for well over a decade. His dedication to analog and experimental recording techniques produces blankets of warm and inviting sound. His rich and off-kilter voice is an instrument in itself that, combined with sprawling chords and wandering echo, leisurely reveals his dream-folk visions. At times bordering on a washed out and narcotic Neil Young, Shropshire somehow blends meticulous attention to detail with a loose and organic approach, and his compositions always have a living, breathing feel to them. 2010's Color The Years marked his first solo effort for Wonderland Archives.

On Victory Weather, Shropshire's second full length album, he still sits his songs within an intimate bed of analog, leaving the scattering of tape hiss, the wind whipping around outside, or traces of voices. Yet the production quality has been noticeably refined, creating a richness of tone and a sonic clarity not found on his debut. 

This growth is reflected within the themes of Victory Weather, resulting in a deeply meditative record. Throughout, sparkling guitars curl around Shropshire's baritone reflections on impermanence, love, and a constantly changing world. There is a haunting, mystic glow around what he contemplates, almost as if from the perspective of a life before or after this one. A sense of bittersweet urgency to genuinely engage with the world before it's too late pervades the record, a patient desire to implement purpose as opposed to wandering around for it.