Monk Parker is a true songwriter of lush, melancholy landscapes. His music teeters on the verge of Townes Van Zandt, M. Ward, even Neutral Milk Hotel with its big brass balladry. On new album Crown of Sparrows, out August 4th via Grand Jury, Parker evokes elements of gospel, country, and the purest sense of the blues in sweeping, trembling soundscapes. Listen to his new single “Drowned Men,” a song that “speaks of night life and romance from a position beyond anxiety, in the peaceful cadences of the already-dead.” It’s the perfect track to serenely jolt you through the week. —Maya Eslami

“I used to live outside Athens Georgia, a couple years back. We’d all get very high and pile in the truck and barrel into town at night for some fun. There was a real warm sense of driving into civilization, out of the vast dark sea of crickets and toward the harbor lights of Athens. I was reading a book the week I wrote this song, called “The Nobility Of Failure”, about how Japan has embraced defeats, has allowed space for culturally laudable modes of losing. I was thinking about that in the truck one night, about how living as though you were already dead frees you to win or lose, whichever’s most honorable at the moment. And I realized abruptly that every one in the truck didn’t give a rat’s ass if they lived or died that night.  Not out of any evolved nobility, just cause we were fucked-up little monkeys — but that *that* was freeing, too, even if we didn’t earn it. We were all fully committed to that particular night, for no good reason, come what may. And it worked! We had superpowers in those days. And every time we almost died we walked away again. And that’s why this is such a happy song.” —Monk Parker