villagers

Part experimental indie and part ‘70s soft rock, Califone’s first record in three years finds creative force Tim Rutili reaching new levels of harmony, fragility, and confidence. Whether detailing aging goths retaining their identity through year-long spooky decorations (“Halloween”), an imagined conversation with an inbred monarch (“Habsburg Jaw”), or the conflicts between identity and technology (“Ox-Eye”), Villagers’ nine tracks spread out and luxuriates in the messy darkness of modern life. Like sitting in awe on the porch swing at the end of the world, Califone’s latest marvels at the edge of the universe spreading into the darkness of infinity.

Tim Rutili has spent a quarter century cryptically subverting folk-rock convention. But in these songs—some of his warmest and most welcoming yet—he tells you just how he feels.

No one would have expected Tim Rutili to embrace yacht rock as an influence, and that hasn't happened yet, but his tenth album under the Califone rubric, 2023's Villagers, does suggest he's been listening to a lot of 1970s soft rock and letting the influence soak in.

Tim Rutili’s beloved experimental folk band Califone turned 25 this year. Picking up the pieces from Rutili’s previous band, the alt-rock leaning Red Red Meat, the first iteration of Califone contained many of the same elements of RRM, including several band members contributing at different iterations over the years. The one mainstay has been Rutili,