Interview: Noah Gundersen (August 11th, 2015)

Last week, I got the chance to spend a half hour chatting with Seattle-based folk singer/songwriter, Noah Gundersen. Fresh off the release of his 2014 debut album, Ledges, and already gearing up for the release of the follow-up, Carry the Ghost, Gundersen spoke candidly about the collaborative nature of his new album, about keeping the intimacy of his earlier music alive whilst moving into full-band territory, about exploring difficult subjects like religion and existentialism in his lyrics, and about why we'll probably be hearing yet another new album from him sooner rather than later.

Craig Manning (CM): Last year was a big year for you, with Ledges getting a fair amount of coverage. I know it was in our top 10, our staff list, for the year.

Noah Gundersen (NG): Oh thanks!

CM: I think you gained a lot a lot of new fans last year, definitely on our site and certainly just in general as well. I was wondering: has your life changed much since you released [Ledges], or do you still feel pretty much the same?

NG: Well, I think I've changed, probably, just in the personal sense of growth over the last couple of years. But, you know, I wouldn't say my life has changed significantly. I'm not like, hounded by people when I go out in public or anything. (Laughs) But it's changed in the sense that, I guess, seeing what's possible and also just having the personal growth of that experience, of releasing a proper full length record for the first time, and just experiencing all the things that go along with that, learning what works and what doesn't, and how I want to proceed with my musical career, on a creative and in a business sense. So, yeah, like anything that happens in your life, it's affected me and changed me, but I'm still the same dude, I think.

CM: Right, cool! So Carry the Ghost is out next Friday? Is that right?

NG: Right...wow, I guess so! (Laughs) It's coming up really soon, which is funny because like—I was just talking with somebody about this the other day—with Ledges it was such a long and arduous process of getting it done. You know, finishing the recording, and then making a change in management during that process, and trying to figure out the label thing, and like, it just dragged on forever and ever. So when it finally came out, it felt like I was counting down the days, whereas with this one, the process has been so smooth and kind of painless that we...I'm surprised when I think that it's coming out in, like, a week. (Laughs) Pretty wild.

CM: Well this one, it comes pretty quick on the heels of Ledges too, just in terms of release. I think I remember reading that you were going back into the studio, was it last August now?

NG: Yes. Yeah, so within a year practically of it's recording, it's coming out, which is awesome. I think that so much of that is just because the infrastructure's there. You know, I'm constantly writing. I've got another record...I probably have enough material already to go in and work on another one. So that was never the problem, it was more just the infrastructure of releasing and all that stuff. So now that that's in place, hopefully we'll be cranking them out.

CM: Yeah, I was going to ask about that, because it seems like you've been going sort of nonstop since...well definitely since Ledges came out. So I was wondering if you had been planning to take a break after this, but it sounds like not!

NG: Yeah, well you know, it's funny. Being a musician is a really weird job. It's kind of like being a teacher, in the sense that your work is kind of…seasonal? So, to me, I don't feel like I've been going nonstop. (Laughs) I've had most of this summer off. You know, we've been doing some press stuff, but I enjoy being busy, and I enjoy having something productive to do every day. I feel like I like having that routine. So I don't feel in any way that I've been like "going nonstop." Maybe, it might appear like that to other people, but you know...

CM: Well, just like, in comparison to other musicians, who might take three or four years to make an album, I guess.

NG: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I try not to compare myself I guess! (Laughs) Sometimes maybe I should, but I just...I like working, you know? I do something that I love, so...I like keeping myself busy with it. And it also keeps you from getting in your own head too much. You know, for me...I do enjoy taking time off after a tour or record or something? But within a couple weeks or a month or so, I start to get antsy.

CM: Right. Well you also...you do your records in sort of a very do-it-yourself fashion, right? I mean, you produce them and you have family members who play on them. What kind of atmosphere does that create in the studio, to basically make albums with your siblings?

NG: Oh, it's just brutal. Just terrible. (Laughs) No, it's...they're awesome. And it's not just my siblings now. It's my bass player, Micah, and hopefully on the next record our touring guitar player, AJ, will be a part of it. But, this last record, Carry the Ghost, was super collaborative, which was awesome. I think I've always fantasized about having a band. I think you get that as a singer/songwriter, from spending years playing alone in a coffee shop to no one listening. (Laughs) You start to fantasize about, you know, making a big sound and stuff. But I'm super grateful to have these guys working with me. Carry the Ghost wouldn't have been what it is without the contributions of everyone in the band, which I'm...yeah, I'm just really grateful for that.

The atmosphere is pretty open, and collaborative, and you know, it's fun. It's fun making records. I almost love that more than touring, because there's something... I mean, I started working when I was 12. My dad was a contractor, so I would go to work with him in the mornings during the summer, and then as I got older, I worked with him more. So I'm used to that...I like waking up in the morning and going to work. And I think that's my favorite part of the whole studio process, is you get to have a schedule and wake up and go and be creative for about 10 hours. And then you come home, and have a couple drinks, go to bed, and do it over again. That's my favorite thing.

CM: I was going to ask about the collaboration behind Carry the Ghost too, because Ledges was very stripped down and acoustic, and on this one, there's a lot more...I mean there's obviously a lot of electric guitar, and there's the backing vocals on "Halo," and then just...it's lusher across the board. Have you wanted to flesh out your songs like that for a while?

NG: Yeah, I think I had. You know, there was a big gap between the writing of the songs for Ledges and Carry the Ghost, because Ledges came out...I guess early 2014, I think?

CM: Yeah, it was February. I think February.

NG: Yeah, so that was a couple...it was already a couple years ago. I mean, most of those songs had been written a year or two prior to that release, so my taste and my aesthetic has change considerably since the writing of those songs. Some of the things that I'm into are not what I was into at the time of Ledges. So I knew that I wanted to make something that was different, something that I would enjoy listening to.

So when we were going into the studio, I had the bare bones of these songs. But we did pre-production with the band and just tried out different approaches. And then there was a lot of just messing around with stuff in the studio. We brought in synthesizers and different amps and...spent a lot of time getting sounds and tones, and then just trying ideas and creating textures and experimenting. And, you know, a lot of stuff didn't work. (Laughs) But the stuff that did, we ended up keeping, and I think it turned out pretty cool.

CM: Oh yeah. Well, it's really interesting to me because a lot singer/songwriters who start out acoustic and then...you know, go full band...they sort of get criticized for losing the intimacy of their earlier stuff. But I don't really feel like that here, I feel like you definitely sort of keep both worlds on this.

NG: Yeah, well I think it's all...I mean, I think the trap that some singer/songwriters fall into when they start is that they have some success with their record, and then make another one that's considerably more polished or with a band because they want to have that big sound. But I think that maybe what happens is they...they replace a sound for songs, you know? I think if the core of the thing is a good song, then you build everything around that, and I think, unfortunately, sometimes people think like, "Oh, I've got this band now. I got my song, and I think it's a cool song, but really the thing is that I've got this band sound." But, you know, for me it all has to start out with the song, and [with the question of] "does the band make the song better?" And that's, I think, how it turned out with this record, is that we just started from the ground up, and then did what complimented the song instead of just saying "Hey, we're gonna be as loud as we can on every tune here."

CM: So you were still starting them, basically, as acoustic songs, and then you'd take them into the studio and sort of build them up?

NG: Yeah, yeah, I mean, everything was written either on an acoustic guitar or a piano. And the cool thing is, they still work that way. Like, I might be doing some solo shows after this next tour. I'm not really sure. But, just messing around with these songs on their own, it's encouraging to know that they stand up just on one instrument as well as they do with the full band.

CM: Yeah, and I mean, on that note, you did "Heartbreaker" last year on the Twenty-Something EP, and that was acoustic. Were there any other songs from the EP that you considered recording with the full band?

NG: You know, we did one of the songs on the EP, the "Guardian Angel," we did it with a full band on the last tour, which was cool. But, no ["Heartbreaker"] was the only one on Twenty-Something that [we recorded full band], and I had already known that, because Twenty-Something was actually recorded at the end of recording Carry the Ghost. Those are just extra songs we had. So, we went in and recorded and I just did it on tape in a couple of hours. We did it straight to tape. So those were kind of like the b-sides, the acoustic b-sides of the record.

CM: Yeah, we just got those first, so I wasn't sure exactly.

NG: Yeah, no, (laughs) and it's kind of the reverse process: you release the b-sides and then you release the record.

CM: No, that's actually super cool though. What does a typical recording session look like for you? Are you someone who tends to do straight-to-tape stuff? I mean, it sounds like for this record you did more experimentation with the band and just playing around with stuff.

NG: Yeah, I mean there were different approaches for different songs. The only thing we did on tape was the EP, but I'd love to do more of that in the future. It's just a whole different world that I haven't really jumped into yet, but I hope to soon. But with the record, you know, a lot of the tracks were just multi-track layered. A couple of them, like "Heartbreaker"..."Heartbreaker turned out, I think it's kind of special to us just because we set up everything in the same room and recorded it live in one take. Or we did a couple takes of it, but took the best. And that song was loud as fuck. (Laughs) Like, you can hear things rattling in the track, because there was drums, bass, and guitar all in that one room. Which was just such a cool experience, and I think the rawness of the song comes through in that performance, because it is kind of...it's just messy, it's noisy. From a recording standpoint it's kind of a mess, but somehow it turned out pretty cool. But other than that, most of it was just done in layers, or drums and bass were done simultaneously.

CM: Cool. So, to talk a little bit about the themes of the album, what does the title, Carry the Ghost, what does that mean to you? And why did that phrase seem to stand out as something that summed up this collection of songs?

NG: I think the idea of experience and history shaping who we are, I think that was where that idea came from. It's something we carry, our experiences, and something we live with every day, and you know, we make decisions on how we respond to our experiences, but they are what shapes us. So there's that existential idea. There's also a little bit of a post-relationship aspect to it, but it's not necessarily a break-up album. It's more just an exploration of, ultimately, existentialism.

CM: Yeah, that is a big theme, and that caught me as well, just because...I mean, I do believe in God, but I think it's interesting that, for a lot of people who are very religious, they sort of...they take God as the overarching meaning in their life instead of finding different levels of meaning elsewhere, as well.

NG: Right!

CM: And so, listening to a song like "Empty from the Start," where you're basically talking about finding the meaning in your life in relationships and in love, that really hit me. Can you tell me a little bit about how your thoughts on religion have evolved over the course of your music? Because I know you've used religious imagery in the past, and it hasn't really been from this kind of perspective.

NG: Yeah. Man. I guess the best answer would be to say, "just go back and listen to my records." (laughs) And just kind of get a sense of the evolution of my thinking on it. At this point, I'm not religious. I'm not even sure if I really believe in God at this point. But, um...the verdict's still out on God. But I think a lot of the topics on this record are based around trying to understand, like, what are the ethical guidelines in my life now that they're not dictated by a religion or by belief in a god? And that's a scary thing, and that's a place of vulnerability. Because I think people want to be told how to live, ultimately, because it's easier. And to have someone else spell out for you what is right or what is wrong, that takes a little less work than having to really decide what your ethics are and why. So that's kind of the place that I'm at now. I'm not so much grappling with faith as I am with understanding my own personal ethics and why I live the way I live, or what is the quote-unquote "right way to live," and then learning to accept the fact that we don't live in a black and white world, and that there are very few things that just apply to everything as far as rules for ways to live.

CM: One of my favorite songs here is "Topless Dancer," which is really stunning and evocative from a lyrical perspective, and also seems very metaphorical. I wanted to ask about that one and sort of where it came from, because it seems just very poetic in a way that a lot of songs aren't anymore.

NG: Oh, thank you. I mean, yeah, it's a song about sexuality. It's a song about, again, kind of alluding to that ethic of a Christian moralistic path that also shames most people's sexuality, and creates a lot of pent up sexual energy or misguided sexual energy, or just shame about people's sexual identities and sexual experiences. So the idea of this topless dancer was essentially an idea of sexual liberation. And you know, then the second verse is this vulnerable kind of comment about being a Christian teen and… (Laughs) and having wet dreams and, you know, feeling guilt about that. And just...and how fucked up that is, that that's something that we have guilt about: these very human, totally biological desires that are shamed, and unfortunately can, I think, create a lot of damage in people's psyches. I mean, not unalterable, but it's unfortunate and sad that so much energy is spent on controlling people's sexuality.

CM: Do you have a favorite song on this album, or one that means a lot to you in particular? I know you said that, for the band, "Heartbreaker" was special.

NG: Yeah. Man that's...they all mean a lot to me. I think "Empty from the Start" is kind of the clearest declaration of where I'm at now, and I think, hopefully breaks some ties with people's ideas of me as a "religious-but-questioning" or as a downright religious songwriter. That's really not where I'm at, and I think "Empty from the Start" makes that pretty clear, so I'm glad to have that song on the record. But they're all special to me. They all mean different things, and I'm really pumped to play all of them live.

CM: That's great. You've announced a tour for this already, right?

NG: Yeah, yeah, we start September 11th?

CM: And are you taking the full band out?

NG: Yep, taking the full band, bringing out our own lights this time. It's gonna be different than any other show we've done before.

CM: Are you still playing mostly pretty small and intimate venues, or are you playing bigger rooms this time around?

NG: It's like 500 to 1,000 cap rooms?

CM: Got it, cool. Also, speaking of just...things outside of writing and recording your own music, I guess: you recently produced the upcoming album, [Fables] from David Ramirez, right?

NG: Yeah, yeah, it's something I'm super proud of. David's not only a really good friend, but just a fantastic songwriter, so it was super cool to be a part of that.

CM: Yeah, I got a promo of that too, because I'm going to review it. But I was wondering if you have any aspirations of doing more production for other artists, or if you sort of just did that [for David] because you guys are friends?

NG: No, I do. Like I said earlier, I just really enjoy being in the studio. I mean, I'm not an engineer. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a lot about the technical side. You know, I know my mics and I have a general understanding, but I don't...I'm not an engineer. But I love being in the studio, and there's something cool about being able to be a voice of reason on someone else's work, or to have some perspective. Because you get so close to the thing that you're making when you're making it, that sometimes you don't have the...you''re not able to take a step back and look at the big picture. So it's cool to be able to be that for somebody else. So yeah, I definitely hope more things come along where it makes sense for me to work with somebody. And you know, with David, it just made sense. But yeah, hopefully I'll get to do more of that.

CM: Have you ever considered bringing in a producer to work on your records, or do you just like doing that part yourself?

NG: Yeah! I feel like, at this point, I'll probably do the next record with a producer. I think there's a lot that I could learn from working with somebody. I worked with a producer a long time ago, but the last two records have been just self-produced. So yeah, I would love to work with a producer—in part just so that I could learn more about that role, both for self-producing and for producing other people's work.

CM: Yeah, because then you can apply that to sort of everything. Okay, last question: do you have any albums you're loving lately that you want to recommend to both me and the people on our website?

NG: Yeah! Obviously, the new Tame Impala record that everyone loves is awesome. I finally got into Sylvan Esso, I think they're great. Actually, let me pull up my things that I've been listening to lately. I've listened to a lot of Huey Lewis and the News. (Laughs) Sports is a pretty fucking awesome album. Hmmm, what have I been listening to? I feel like there's so much, but you know, whenever you get asked, you immediately forget everything...
CM: Ha, yeah, it's awful.

NG: Oh, I rediscovered the Weakerthans the other day. They're a band I used to listen to a lot, and I've kind of been on kick of that late-90s, early 2000s indie rock...like, guys who were bad at sports and wore sweaters and played music. (Laughs) So like, early Pedro the Lion, Weakerthans. Umm, the new Kurt Vile song is super rad; the new Lana Del Rey song is super awesome. Yeah, that's kind of...it, off the top of my head.

CM: Alright, that's cool though, thanks. Okay, I think that's all I had for you here. Do you have anything you want to add, either about...are you gonna stream the record next week?

NG: We will be, yeah. It'll be out on the Wall Street Journal.

CM: Is that just going to be mid-week? Or Monday? I guess it comes out on Friday now, I'm still not used to that.

NG: I know, it's super weird. I think it's Monday? I'm not sure though.

CM: Alright cool, I was just wondering because I'll probably post this early in the week, so I'll be sure to link to the stream.

NG: Well thanks man, and hey, thanks for all the support you guys are giving me. You know, I've seen it online and I really do appreciate it.

CM: yeah, our pleasure. I mean, we just put up...we're putting up the Absolute 100 right now, which is sort of our "artists who are sort of overlooked that you should go listen to" list, and you and David Ramirez and Field Report and a few other guys, they were my picks.

NG: Awesome, well I appreciate it!

Noah Gundersen - Carry the Ghost

Leading up to the release of Carry the Ghost, the second full-length album from Noah Gundersen, I was a little bit nervous. I loved Noah's first LP, last year's Ledges, so much that I couldn't imagine the follow-up living up to my impossibly high expectations. If I had to pick a favorite record of the decade so far, Ledges would be it, so the thought of Gundersen making an album as good (or even better) was hardly something that I was even daring to hope for. Furthermore, the first track released from Carry the Ghost—the piano-led album opener "Slow Dancer"—showed that Noah was looking to flesh out his sound significantly on this record. Even on first listen, I really did love the song, but by the time an anguished electric guitar came ripping through the arrangement, I was worried that Carry the Ghost might fall victim to the pitfalls that singer/songwriters often encounter when they trade acoustic bedroom folk for lusher full-band textures. After all, we hadn't heard a lick of electric guitar on Ledges.

What ultimately made Ledges so special was the intimacy of it. It was dropping the needle on that record and immediately feeling like "Poor Man's Son" was being performed in your living room. It was hearing Noah make these candid, heart-on-the-sleeve statements about his life and his relationships, without reservation or pretense. It was the fact that so much emotional power could be yielded just by his sister Abby's voice or violin playing, without any need for electric instrumentation. It was the fact that the production was so raw and organic that the album felt like it had been recorded straight-to-tape, even if it hadn't. Too often, singer/songwriters who find that kind of success with little more than acoustic guitar, great lyrics, and a haunting voice tend to lose some of what made them so special when they expand to full band. In the past few years alone, that loss of intimacy is a criticism that's been levied at a slew of my favorite songwriters—from Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, to Ray LaMontagne, to Kristian Matsson of The Tallest Man on Earth—and it wasn't something I wanted to see happen to Noah Gundersen.

Clearly, I needn't have worried.

Instead of taking away the heart and soul of Noah's music, the use of electric guitar and lusher full-band textures on Carry the Ghost proves to be the perfect evolution of his sound. When I spoke to Noah last week, we discussed the idea of acoustic singer/songwriters losing their way when moving into a full-band environment, and he told me that, for him, the fleshing out of his sound was only ever going to happen if it could be done in service of already great song. In other words, instead of starting as big sprawling full band songs, all 13 tracks on Carry the Ghost were written on acoustic guitar or piano. Gundersen and his band then built them up in the studio, searching for ways to make them even more exceptional.

And exceptional they are. In fact, the songs on Carry the Ghost where Gundersen makes ample use of the electric guitar and multi-track layering often work to push his music into a whole new dimension of emotion. The piercing "Halo (Disappear/Reappear)" channels Jeff Buckley, with a big layered background vocal refrain and a climax where Noah's anguished wails are almost drowned out by the clash of the band. "I Need a Woman" uses a wistful electric guitar lead to conjure up an image of the sun rising over the highway in the middle of a post-heartbreak road trip. "Jealous Love" is arguably Gundersen's most conventional pop song ever, combining a killer chorus hook with a climactic guitar solo that will send shivers down your spine. The chiming guitars of "Blossom" give the song a beautifully hazy end-of-summer vibe, with a wash of strings and yet another gorgeous guitar solo providing the emotional peak. And the album's anchor, the seven-minute "Heartbreaker," gets so loud that—as Gundersen noted in our interview—you can actually hear things rattling around in the studio from the virtual earthquake of guitars, bass, and drums.

Still, Gundersen is smart enough to know when he has a song that should be left acoustic, and he opts to keep a stripped down sound for nearly half of Carry the Ghost. "Selfish Art" is perhaps the song here that sounds most like a Ledges cut, starting in near silence, but crescendoing to a big octave-leaping emotional payoff at the climax (a la "First Defeat"). "Planted Seeds" ends the album much like "Time Moves Quickly" ended the last one: a sparse piano ballad serving as an epilogue of sorts for the emotional journey that preceded it. And "Silver Bracelet" uses an entrancing acoustic guitar riff to formulate one of Noah's best breakup songs, the narrator musing nostalgically about a lost relationship, and about the way things used to be "Back before we worked it to the bone/Back before we really should have known/Back before I made up my mind to go." The way Noah sings that final line, in the delicate whisper that he often employs on his softer ballads, is completely devastating, plumbing such depths of weathered emotion that we as listeners get to experience both his pain, and the pain of the person he left behind.

To Gundersen, the title Carry the Ghost comes from the idea that our experiences and the stories that we gather throughout our lives are what shape us. The album as a whole is very existential in its themes and lyrical motifs, playing like the poetry of a man who has slowly shed his religious beliefs throughout his life, and is now searching for new meaning in the world. Those themes posit "Empty from the Start" as the album's clear center-piece, with Gundersen making some pretty blunt and damning proclamations about the concept of organized religion. "Anyone that tells you they were born good is lying," he states in the first verse, his voice crackling with anger before he adds, "we're just born, and we are dying." It's a bleak set-up, but Noah finds the light later in the song, realizing that "To truly love someone is the closest I have come to truth."

Gundersen's point with "Empty from the Start" is evident: meaning and purpose in life don't come from our conception of a god, or from someone else's dated moralistic guidelines or beliefs; rather, they comes from love, and from the relationships we cultivate with other people while we still have time on earth. There's fear and uncertainty to be found in that kind of belief, or in a lyric like "This is all we have, this is all we are/Blood and bones, no Holy Ghost/Empty from the start." But there's also comfort in thinking that no one else is the master of your destiny, or in believing that falling in love and building a family, or even finding a home with a tight-knit group of friends, is sometimes enough to fill your life with all the meaning you really need.

"Topless Dancer," arguably the album's most stunning moment, is equally critical of a life built around religion. Beautifully poetic and metaphorical on an almost Dylanesque level, "Topless Dancer" takes one of the most sexualized and stigmatized images in our culture—that of the eponymous erotic performer—and turns it into something unspeakably beautiful and delicate. "She sang to me the rhythm of autumn/It was there that I found my space/In the search for the perfect Madonna/To bear the burden of Amazing Grace," Gundersen sings in the first verse—images so stunningly beautiful that they at first seem to clash with the title of the song...until you realize that said contrast is the whole point of the song. Ultimately, the topless dancer of the title turns out to be a metaphor for the way our culture—and specifically, our religious groups—see sexuality as something to be hidden, something to be suppressed, something to be guilty of. "And to the priests and the prophets/Who say our bodies are godless/Oh, tell me what the hell does that mean?" Noah scrutinizes, taking to task, in the second verse, the institutions that can make someone feel ashamed about something as uncontrollable as a sexual dream. There's a connection to be found here to "Empty from the Start," and it's this: if the true meaning of life is found in love and relationships, then sexuality is a big part of that meaning as well; to suppress it, therefore, is to suppress who we are.

The topics that Noah Gundersen chooses to tackle on Carry the Ghost are not easy subjects to write songs about—particularly songs that don't rehash tired perspectives we've already heard a hundred times before. No one wants to hear a 26-year-old male parrot the things he learned in a human sexuality class or read about in an existentialist philosophy textbook. Remember the Harvard bar douchebag from Good Will Hunting? That's probably the kind of album he would make. But Gundersen, at 26, is already more thoughtful and eloquent than many songwriters who are 10, 20, or even 30 years his senior. Instead of just writing stock songs about existentialism or sexuality or broken relationships, Gundersen ties every word and melody he writes to his own personal experiences—his own personal ghosts. The result is a record that feels as weighty as a work of literature, but also as enveloping and beautiful as the best albums that the folk music genre has ever produced. I can't yet say whether or not it's better than Ledges, or even whether or not it will be my album of the year, but I can say that Carry the Ghost is the second straight masterpiece from one of the most engaging and exciting songwriters working today, and based on how young Gundersen still is, it's frankly quite thrilling to imagine the kind of albums he might be capable of making in the future. If you aren't listening to this guy yet, start.

Noah Gundersen - Ledges

There’s a moment near the beginning of Noah Gundersen’s fantastic debut album, called Ledges, where the singer/songwriter just lets loose. The song in question, a traditional Appalachian folk-like reverie called “Poor Man’s Son,” dwells for most of its runtime in a stripped down a cappella setting, Gundersen’s voice melding with his sister’s to create a sound that is instantly timeless. It feels like something that should have been on one of the T. Bone Burnett-helmed Coen Brothers soundtracks, Gundersen’s voice and style leaning more toward the recent Inside Llewyn Davis and his sister Abby’s Emmylou Harris impression – not to mention the song’s decision to directly quote from “Down in the River to Pray” – coming more from the fertile traditional music ground of O Brother Where Art Thou. The combination, frankly, is every bit as stunning as it sounds, with lyrics like “I’ve got money for food and a little bit of gasoline” gliding out like something that would have sounded equally at home in the Great Depression as it does in the current economic recession.

For most of its runtime, “Poor Man’s Son” is a slow-burn lo-fi folk song, wrapping listeners in its warm and calming Americana, and building a house of gentle, buoyant sound around them. But being a poor man’s son ain’t about being comfortable or building a warm and welcoming house; rather, it’s about striking a match and burning that house to the ground because that’s the only thing you can do to stay warm, and that’s precisely what Gundersen does at the song’s peak. “But I don’t need no gold or silver,” Gundersen wails at the top of his lungs, his voice causing the microphone to crackle. “Oh, I only need a few new things/Oh, I would buy pearls for my lover/Or just a brand new set of guitar strings.”

The way Gundersen sings those final lines, with torrential, hurricane force, is similar to the reckless emotional abandon we’ve heard on recent folk albums from the likes of the Civil Wars, Glen Hansard, and the Lone Bellow. And just like on those albums, this rousing, plaintive moment of emotion hits like a punch to the gut because it comes at the end of a long, restrained crescendo. I described “Poor Man’s Son” above as a reverie, and that’s precisely what it is, right up until Gundersen throws his voice into a higher register, breaks the spell, and demands a new description. The dreamlike quality of “Poor Man’s Son” takes us back to simpler times, times when recording technology was just developing and when artists had to stand on their own talent rather than on the dollar amount they paid for their computer software. This is the kind of music we need to be hearing right now, and on Ledges, Gundersen is here to provide it. He might not be able to afford new guitar strings, and he’s quite sure there’s going to be trouble along the way, but fuck it, there’s going to be music anyway.

All of this is just a long, roundabout way of describing the feeling that Ledges inspires in me, which is that Noah Gundersen is a songwriter with a timeless talent and a peerless ability to tap into the everyday struggles of people who are still surviving stone cold broke in the middle of the winter. That’s not to say that the whole album is about being poor, though: throughout these 11 songs, Gundersen charts thematic territory ranging from death and alcoholism to the most egregious of heartbreaks. Plenty of songwriters have explored those very topics before, but the way Gundersen does it, with wavering vulnerability that you can hear in his voice, in his words, in the way he strums his guitar, it’s the reason that those topics will never stop hitting hard when delivered by people eloquent to describe their exquisite pain.

Take the title track, a heart-wrenching rumination on what it means to love someone who you don’t think you deserve. The character in this song has lost so much faith in himself that it’s pushed him up onto a ledge, and whether that ledge is literal or metaphorical doesn’t matter because the words here are strong enough to kill by themselves. “I’ve got a lot of loose ends, I’ve done some damage/I’ve cut the rope so it frayed/And I’ve got a lot of close friends, keeping me distracted/Keeping my sanity safe,” Gundersen sings at the song’s outset. He continues to put himself down throughout the song, from doubting his own free will (“I drink a little too much and it makes me nervous/I’ve got my grandfather’s blood”) to wondering if he even has the ability to connect with another person (“I want to know how to love/Not just the feeling”). When he delivers the song’s core message on the chorus, that he’s just trying to be a better man for the person he loves, his voice wavers. It’s a small, subtle factor, but it sells the song and cuts right to the bone.

Moments like that one abound throughout this record, from the parting lovers of “Boathouse” to the cheating lovers of “Isaiah.” Gundersen’s greatest strengths are the lyrical, and though he writes short and simple poetry, his words convey sharp devastation and utter honesty in a way that only the best songwriters can. In that regard, he’s a bit like Jason Isbell and Donovan Woods, two other recent favorites of mine who never seem to pull their punches when it comes to setting a scene.

Other musical influences are everywhere, from Hansard (the somber beauty that is “Poison Vine” could easily have been pulled from the Once soundtrack) to Ryan Adams (“Dying Now,” which might as well be a b-side from Adams’ last record, Ashes & Fire, for how much Gundersen sounds like the former Whiskeytown frontman). On his best songs, though, Gundersen sells his talents in a way that invites no comparison. Case in point is “First Defeat,” a heartbreaking song about two dysfunctional lovers who just can’t seem to quit each other. Gundersen’s delivery is aces, growing to another bellowed climax on the bridge, but the weapon once again is the lyrics, which string together one devastating line (“And you discover that home is not a person or place/But a feeling you can’t get back”) after another (“It’s the little things that convince me to stay/It’s your fingertips, and the music they play”). Similarly effective is “Liberator,” where Gundersen tries to convince himself that he’s not in love with someone that he clearly can’t stop thinking about. A lilting falsetto on the bridge seals the deal, and the line “Love will record our soul on the side” is the kind of mixtape gold that makes this record as much a pleasure on a song-by-song basis as it is for a cohesive whole.

Ledges is the kind of record that sounds great from the very first listen, but over time, as Gundersen’s words begin to cut deeper and take root, it transcends the mere prettiness that is so often the bread and butter of singer/songwriter records. There’s a feeling of profound sadness in these songs, and Gundersen’s haunted delivery – whether he’s in whisper mode or pulling into full-blown emotive catharsis – makes them virtually impossible to shake once you’ve listened a few times. Frankly, Ledges would be a stunning accomplishment coming from anyone, but as a full-length solo debut album (Gundersen has been around for a bit, but his music has come in the form of full-band projects or solo EPs), it’s simply astounding. It’s an album that should bring this songwriter’s powerful talent to the big leagues for the first time, and whether you compare him to Ryan Adams, Glen Hansard, or someone else, the simple fact that he can already stand shoulder to shoulder with the modern folk music greats is sign enough that there are great things to come for Noah Gundersen.