Orville Peck has released Mule in full, and Clash treats it as the most honest record he has made. The write-up runs through what the songs deal with: sexual identity, self-shame, mental health, heartbreak, grief and addiction. Peck told the Guardian the album documents "the most important year of my life", a line the outlet quotes in its report.
The recovery running under the record is the part Peck himself puts into words. "I still hurt sometimes," he said, "but now I think I have the courage to face it." That is the frame Clash puts on the album as a whole, describing a line traced through recovery rather than a set of songs about a bad year.
Mule was built with Jay Joyce at Neon Cross Studio, the producer's own room in Nashville. Joyce has worked with Patty Griffin and Eric Church, and the sessions kept a tight circle around him: Peck's five-piece full-time band, plus a short list of guests rather than a stack of features.
Those guests are worth naming because of how the record opens. Noah Cyrus, Allison Russell and Emmylou Harris harmonise together on the first piece, on words Peck wrote, with Clash describing the three of them as three generations of country queens singing at once. Molly Tuttle, Ketch Secor of country veterans Old Crow Medicine Show, and Teddy and the Rough Riders turn up elsewhere on the album.
The touring starts immediately rather than after a gap. Peck's Man Turned Mules tour opened at the Hollywood Bowl the night the album arrived, which puts the songs in front of an audience before anyone has had time to sit with them.
Peck spent part of the run-up to this record on somebody else's songs. He opened a London concert with I Will Always Love You after Dolly Parton died, which we covered when it happened at his London tribute. Ketch Secor's own band have their own autumn commitments, covered in the Old Crow Medicine Show holiday run. Mule and its tour dates are both tracked on the release calendar and the tour guide.
The facts
- Orville Peck's album Mule is out now.
- Jay Joyce produced it at his Neon Cross Studio in Nashville.
- Peck's five-piece full-time band played the sessions.
- Molly Tuttle, Ketch Secor and Teddy and the Rough Riders guest on it.
- Noah Cyrus, Allison Russell and Emmylou Harris sing the opening piece.
- Clash lists sexual identity, shame, grief and addiction as its subjects.
- He told the Guardian it documents the most important year of his life.
- The Man Turned Mules tour opened at the Hollywood Bowl.
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