CRITTERLAND
OUT NOW
For folk singer Willi Carlisle, singing is healing. And by singing together, he believes we can begin to reckon with the inevitability of human suffering and grow in love. On his latest album, Critterland, Carlisle invites audiences to join him: “If we allow ourselves to sing together, there's a release of sadness, maybe even a communal one. And so for me personally, singing, like the literal act of thinking through suffering, is really freeing,” he says.
Rooted in the eclectic and collective world of his live shows, Carlisle’s third album and debut for Signature Sounds, Critterland takes up where his sophomore album, Peculiar, Missouri left off, transforming Peculiar’s big tent into a Critterland menagerie and letting loose the weirdos he gathered together. The album is a wild romp through the backwaters of his mind and America, lingering in the odd corners of human nature to visit obscure oddballs, dark secrets and complicated truths about the beauty and pain of life and love.
Produced by the GRAMMY Award-nominated Darrell Scott and to be released Jan. 26, 2024 by Signature Sounds, Critterland considers where we come from and where we are going. On the album, he takes on human suffering through stories about forbidden love, loss, generational trauma, addiction, and suicide, believing that by processing the traits and trauma we inherit, he can reach a deeper understanding of what it means to succeed and to exist.
PLAYING GOD (SINGLE)
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"'Playing God' explores that internal battle of seeing something go wrong for someone you care about, and wanting so badly to make it better...only to find out that your services are not needed, and might in fact be making it worse!"
"I reached out to Kaia about this song because I love the exploratory sonic nature of her new album, and thought her voice would perfectly suit the track and the production direction. I have been friends with Kaia for years, and we have been on a similar career trajectory. We were placed together first on an APAP showcase in New York when we were both releasing our first albums. Then, with our second albums, we got to play Celtic Connections together in Scotland. It's been really fun to feel like we've been working in parallel, and I love her vision and storytelling so much."