Lou Turner :: Strangels
Album cover: Trevor Nikrant
Photo: Trevor Nikrant
From the label that brought you Rosali’s beloved 2018 classic “Trouble Anyway", Ella Hanshaw's “Black Book,” and early Yasmin Williams, to name a few, the North Carolina-based feminist label Spinster has been releasing a steady flow of tender textures and polished poetry for nearly a decade now. While remaining a safe space for women to express and explore tonal themes and melodic meditations on life, the label and its roster have expanded into territories equipped with both the talent and vibrational voices that made catalogs from the likes of Vanguard, early Reprise Records, and Arista so compelling and fundamentally fascinating in the early days. Since her 2020 debut “Songs For John Venn,” Nashville, Tennessee-based writer and musician for bands such as Styrofoam Winos, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, MJ Lenderman, and several others, Lou Turner has become a household name here in the South, as we couldn’t be more proud to have her as one of our leading liberators in the arts. Over the past few years, the multidisciplinary artist has been releasing music under her own name as a solo musician with the Spinster crew, and “Strangels” (a portmanteau of strange angels), her latest effort, may be her most creatively complex and ceremonious concrete body of work to date. Except for her longtime friend and bandmate Trevor Nikrant’s pedal steel contributions, Turner spiritually summed the entirety of the album in what seems like an alchemical afternoon: the rented door frames swelling in the sweet southern heat as the HVAC kicks into overdrive, each entry explores a different dynamic of the human condition under the galactic glow of the meditative moon, while the melodic morning peeks around the corner as a new dawn eagerly approaches.
“Sounds funny, but this record is the story of my life. Not ~finding my voice~ but pulling all of my disparate voices into one spot. The road dog, the ex-librarian who loves to stay at home with her cats. And especially the pastor’s kid entertaining themselves in a church after hours, making up songs (and words) in an empty choir loft. Hangin with all the strange angels along the way. I am grateful to everyone in my life who encouraged this one, knowingly or not.”
Photo: Trevor Nikrant
Throughout the album’s amber-toned accents, truly touching insights from the singing spirit soar from one end of the earth as minutes and seconds tick like a mechanical metronome, softly putting listeners in a delightful daze from one song to the next. Inspired by the likes of Fanny Howe, in particular her 1998/2003 essay-manifesto, “Bewilderment,” and Joni Mitchell’s Hejira tuning, which has unapologetically motivated generation after generation to pick up a stringed instrument and get lost in the poetic process of transcendental tuning, “Strangels” takes on a life of its own as if the expressive ecosystem is actively growing with each new listen. Featuring tracks such as “Ark,” “For The Love Of The Game,” “Sure Ain’t A Horse,” as well as the album’s opener and first single, “Ants Underfoot,” Turner ultimately divides the land and lake with a steadiness that effortlessly echoes that familiar Youngian flow that we all love and cherish as a deceased family member’s heartfelt heirloom passed down from one cousin to the next. Whether her medium is publication, performing, freelance work, recording/overdubbing, or grant writing, Turner’s intimate input into the world of sound and the literary landscape is truly motivating during this rather dark and hellacious, hazy time in our history. Set for release on the sixth of November, “Strangels” is a wonderful way to ease out of 2026 and into the next year. But a critical cause for reflection and meditation will be resting on your shoulders, and it’s up to you, the listeners, to find that blissful balance between letting go and holding on.
