Popsheep

After putting out a series of classic albums and appearing to fade off into the indie rock sunset, Will Oldham managed to come back, create a ridiculous persona named "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy", and somehow release three of my top ten favourite albums back to back: I See A Darkness (1999), Ease on Down the Road (2001), and Master and Everyone (2003). In order to leave room for other albums on my list, I like to think of them as one giant, devastatingly solid triple album much like I do with Leonard Cohen's Songs, Songs From a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate. As with Leonard, the themes that run through the albums are pretty simple - sex and death - but are visited without cliche and in a stripped down, dark country/folk kind of way. The recordings and arrangements in all three albums are also almost perfect.

These songs are from a radio show at a station that I have long since lost the acronym for. It sounds like they were recorded around the time of I See A Darkness, but I'm not totally sure. All that information really doesn't matter, though. What does is that these songs are unbelievably good. This live recording played a major part in convincing me of Will Oldham's genius and I have been thankful for it ever since.

Will Oldham - Death to everyone (solo live)

Will Oldham - I am drinking again (solo live)