Richard Buckner – Impasse [Download Included]

Impasse – Richard Buckner – Deluxe/Limited/Special Edition: The words are entrancingly cryptic, as if their simplicity conceals unfathomable depths. The music is sparse, almost whispered at times, like a secret. The title gives everything away, though. During the gestation of his 2002 album Impasse, which will receive a new vinyl pressing from Merge Records on March 31, 2017, Richard Buckner was stuck. But, with perseverance, what began as one of his most troubled recording attempts ended as one of his best and most pivotal-a capstone for his wayfaring early period before he planted roots with Merge. In 1999, Buckner spent a week in a recording studio with a producer and a few other musicians to work on the songs that were supposed to become Impasse, but the session failed. Instead, he went home and recorded The Hill “as a kind of creative catalyst so I could start thinking again, ” he says. On it, Buckner sang poems from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon Rive