One of Milwaukee’s most visionary songwriters moved to California last month: Todd Umhoefer, the lone constant behind the experimental folk project Old Earth. Considering the role that collaboration has played in Old Earth's recording process, the new location (along with the new cast of musicians he works with out there) is likely to have a big impact on his music going forward.
Today Umhoefer released his first EP since the move, What one could, to these three, be for?, and though it arrives from California, it was recorded during his time here in Milwaukee, so you can think of it a bit like a postcard that was mailed before the sender reached his destination (of course, the same could be said of every Old Earth release, given the ever-evolving nature of the project). If this is the final artifact from Umhoefer’s time in Milwaukee, it’s an apt farewell, since it features some of Umhoefer’s most frequent local collaborators—including Altos’ Erin Wolf, Twin Brother’s Sean Raasch and former Field Report players Nick Berg and Travis Whitty—and picks up where his previous releases have left off, with the same twitchy urgency and unsettled guitars that drove this spring’s All Kill EP and its summer follow-up A Wake in the Wells.
If anything, that sense of unease is only amplified here. “Is it safe to wander the woods again? No? Is it safe?” Umhoefer sings on opener “Naught (auld to joy)” before reaching a sober conclusion: “No.” He barely whispers the word, but for a songwriter who so often writes in unanswered (or unanswerable) questions, the certainty in those two definitive letters hits like a swift, stinging slap.
You can stream What one could, to these three, be for? below, via Bandcamp.
