Taylor Ashton - Stranger To the Feeling

Recorded over the course of a 4,000-mile cross-country roadtrip, Canadian Taylor Ashton’s new album is a sonic odyssey through the heart of America, one that works its way geographically from coast to coast as it meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection. The performances are warm and inviting, anchored by Ashton’s deft guitar and banjo work and rich, easygoing melodicism, and the recordings—helmed by producer Jacob Blumberg and captured with a broad range of collaborators including Courtney Hartman, Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, Vulfpeck’s Theo Katzman, and Late Show bandleader Louis Cato—are alternately sparse and lush. From a blanket in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to a spiritual vortex in Sedona, AZ, the settings are inextricable from the songs, and the result is a moving collection that evokes both the gentle virtuosity of Nick Drake and the buoyant wit of Paul Simon.