John K. Samson - Provincial (New Vinyl LP)

Vinyl LP pressing. Since 1997, John K. Samson has written four acclaimed albums with the Weakerthans. The band's 2007 studio release, Reunion Tour, garnered praise from an assortment of publications including Paste Magazine, who said, "If such a prize existed, it would be the leading candidate for this year's Punk Pulitzer. " Provincial, Samson's first solo release began with a simple idea: to explore four different roads in Manitoba, the Canadian province where Samson lives. "They're the places I kept going back to. " Samson talked to relatives, friends and strangers; he visited archives, a tuberculosis sanatorium turned RV park, a forgotten cemetery. The result is this collection of evocative songs, an album that fits beside Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Sun Kil Moon's Ghosts of the Great Highway, Mountain Goats Tallahassee. While the teenage craving of "Cruise Night" recalls the Cars, "Stop Error" invokes Bach; for "When I Write my Master's Thesis, " Samson's inspiration was all jukebox serendipity Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece, " sailing out from the corner of a Yukon dive bar. Provincial is a record full of fierce, tuneful, vivid stories.