Portland, ME’s W.o.W. Aka Winston Ophelia Walkering is releasing his new, second single Reverse Cowboy on 12th March, and ahead of it, we’re delighted to be able to premiere the video right here on Backseat Mafia today.
It’s taken from his forthcoming album ‘ A dog staring into a mirror on the floor’, and was self recorded during the Covid-19 quarantine last year. It’s actually the brainchild of Whit Walker (Pay the Coyote, Formorning, Dixon Bendejo Trash), and the record features a stellar line up consisting of: Dana Colley (Morphine, Vapors of Morphine), Robert Mitchell (Oak Ridge Boys, Moby, Rural Ghosts), Will Bradford (Seepeoples, theWorst), Dan Capaldi (Sea Level), Jason Grosso (Antiseptic), and lastly, Arthur C. Lee (Arthur C.Lee, Sean Flin), who all recorded their parts remotely, before it was edited, mixed, and mastered at the legendary Chillhouse Studios in Boston, MA, by renown producer Will Holland (Pixies, Dead Can Dance, Fall Out Boy).
Of the track, Winston told Backseat Mafia “When i was down and out and experiencing homelessness myself, which is whatthe song is about, I hung with a guy me and my cohorts call The King Of the Homeless.His nose had been broken 17 times from altercations on the streets. I wrote this song for him,and I’ve never forgotten him, or what it was like to live like him, if only for a time.”
The track is this beautiful slice of country-flecked indie, with gorgeous harmonies as strings and banjo arc and flutter underneath, these little Saxophone interjections giving it this slightly otherworldly fee, spewing our jazz riffs where jazz riffs don’t seem to belong. Somehow, it works, indeed make it. Although only short, Whit’s life-soaked baritone tells stories and paints pictures over the top, weary yet welcoming.
It’s all accompanied by a similarly beautifully shot video, which seems to only accentuate the melancholy contained within. This is the best two minutes you’ll spend today. Check it out, here
Reverse Cowboy is out March 12th.
