Kevin Morby’s Little Wide Open settles into the weekend as one of May’s key indie-folk releases

Kevin Morby’s Little Wide Open remains one of the essential albums from the 15 May release wave and makes sense as a 17 May weekend-listening highlight. Released via Dead Oceans and produced with Aaron Dessner, the album brings Morby into a warm, reflective and emotionally open space without losing his usual road-worn observational style.

The record features contributions from Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams, Katie Gavin, Amelia Meath, members of The National and Hand Habits, but the heart of the album remains Morby’s own songwriting voice. He has long been good at turning American landscapes into emotional maps: highways, towns, rooms, fields and small moments that feel more symbolic the longer they sit with you. Little Wide Open appears to continue that instinct while also circling mortality, parenthood, return and the pressure of making meaning from ordinary days. For a Sunday digest, the album works especially well because it is not built for instant fireworks. It is a record that benefits from time, coffee, windows, afternoon light and a little patience. In a release week full of louder festival stories and genre-fluid experiments, Morby offers something quieter but no less substantial: an indie-folk album that opens slowly and asks the listener to stay. Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/15-new-albums-you-should-listen-to-now-kevin-morby-drake-smerz-and-more