Tracey Nelson

This July, he will release Hercules, his first full-length, on Perennial, an imprint of the beloved Olympia, Washington label K Records, which in recent years has released great LPs by garage rockers Sharp Pins and the amorphous Los Angeles band Dummy. Co-produced by the North Carolina musicians MJ Lenderman and Colin Miller – and performed by a murderers row that includes Lenderman and Miller alongside Landon George, Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman, Xandy Chelmis, Ethan Baechtold and former Hotline TNT guitarist Jack Kraus – Hercules amps up the country elements of last year’s EP while giving Tracey Nelson and his band more space to breathe.

Tracks such as Two Feet and St John’s River amble about in a dazed, friendly way that makes the record’s summer release date a no-brainer; lead single Hercules is a warm spotlight for Noll’s warbling, characterful voice. “I’ll carry you with me wherever I go,” he sings, drawing out each word with a faint sense of adoration and affirmation. The whole of Hercules balances deftly on this tightrope between melancholy and geniality, establishing Noll as an unshowy songwriter with a deeply clarified sense of self.

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