Sean Rowe - Sea Level Oyster Bar Concert Series

Though Rowe has often made his hometown of Troy, New York and its surrounding areas his creative base, New Lore, his fourth studio album brought a new environment, and a new producer. Appropriate to his love of folk-blues legends like Howlin' Wolf, he ventured to Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis to work with Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price). They tapped into the history of the legendary space to hone a sound that is at once rich and stark, putting Rowe's deep and dynamic rage at the forefront. Because if high notes can shatter windows, Rowe's low and guttural ones can meld sand into glass.

The songs on New Lore were often built to let Rowe's voice come through in its most stirring capacity: from the wrenching ode to parenthood "I'll Follow Your Trail" to the naturalistic "The Very First Snow," instrumentals are layered carefully and artfully over the vocals, finding footing in Rowe's sly and idiosyncratic guitar style. Much of what came was a result of Rowe going into the studio with a more relaxed approach – no preproduction was done, no demos finished. Rowe and Ross-Spang embraced an organic style that is so representative of how the singer-songwriter leads his life, and that is one of always fighting to flow gently with the earth, not against it.

Rowe also found himself on another unexpected wave – his unreleased song "To Leave Something Behind" found life in Ben Affleck's film The Accountant, exposing the mystique of his music to an even wider audience.

Rowe speaks to the reality of loving and leaving, a constant dilemma for a man who builds half of himself on tour playing to strangers and half of himself tucking his children in at night. Home is process, not a destination, and New Lore is a roadmap there – perfectly imperfect, raw and real.