Johnny Blue Skies, Sturgill Simpson – Passage Du Desir (2024) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Johnny Blue Skies, Sturgill Simpson – Passage Du Desir (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:43 minutes | 829 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © High Top Mountain Records

Sturgill Simpson makes his long-awaited return to music this year with a new album under a new name, Johnny Blue Skies. After promising to release only five studio albums under his own name, Sturgill Simpson marks the beginning of a new era with Johnny Blue Skies and the release of Passage Du Desir. Released on his own independent label, High Top Mountain Records, the album includes eight songs produced by Johnny Blue Skies and David Ferguson and recorded at Clement House Recording Studio in Nashville, TN and Abbey Road Studios in London, England.Sturgill Simpson has always seemed allergic to pigeonholing. While his fantastic 2016 album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth won a Grammy for Best Country Album, it didn’t fit neatly into that genre (and certainly didn’t get mainstream radio play), weaving in major contributions from the Dap-Kings. And lest Nashville start to get too chummy, Simpson swerved far left with his next record, Sound & Fury, a scorching blast of ZZ Top-style rock ‘n’ roll spiked with funk and prog. sed or surprisingly open-minded—nominated it in both the country and rock categories.) More recently, he’s spent a few years rolling in bluegrass and told Rolling Stone in 2021 that The Ballad of Dood & Juanita would be “the last Sturgill record.”

Apparently sticking to his word, Passage Du Desir is released under the name Johnny Blue Skies—a character Simpson introduced in an insert that came with A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which included the phrase “Beware the dread pirate Johnny Blue Skies.” He employed the name in 2023 for “Use Me (Brutal Hearts),” a shimmering disco-pop collaboration with Diplo and Dove Cameron; that track was a red herring in terms of his latest move. “Swamp of Sadness” and “Who I Am” revisit his early work, leaning into the truly classic country of Waylon and Haggard and pushing Simpson’s richly toned vocal to the front—no belting needed. On gorgeous “Jupiter’s Faerie,” he sings about trying to reconnect with someone who had fallen out of his life, only to find out they “chose to check out and move on/ I guess the pain became the only thing/ Each and every day would bring.” The second chorus is epic, with laser-show guitar, luxe strings and Robbie Crowell on keys.

“If the Sun Never Rises Again” feels akin to the R&B soul of A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. “Scooter Blues” chugs in with a countrified riff on T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” before settling into a J.J. Cale breeze, with Simpson imagining a different life for himself. “Think I’ll move to an island, turn into vapor/ Get a scooter and a house on the hill/ Fish all day just to fill up the grill,” he sings, seemingly goofing on his “outlaw” reputation. “Spend my mornings making chocolate milk and Eggos/ My days at the beach, my nights stepping on Legos/ Wave to the world, screaming ‘hasta luego.'”

Zigging just when you expect him to zag, Simpson tries out shuffling New Wave for “Right Kind of Dream”; absolutely plush with coquettish strings, it’s a delight you can imagine Molly Ringwald swooning to in a John Hughes movie. There’s a Brothers and Sisters-era Allmans vibe to jangling “Mint Tea” and “One for the Road.” A heartbreaker of a heartbreak song, it burns bright and hard, sharp with high-drama strings punctuation, before winding down into a loose, spaced-out jam. – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:

1-01. Johnny Blue Skies – Swamp of Sadness (04:57)
1-02. Johnny Blue Skies – If The Sun Never Rises Again (04:47)
1-03. Johnny Blue Skies – Scooter Blues (03:37)
1-04. Johnny Blue Skies – Jupiter’s Faerie (07:24)
1-05. Johnny Blue Skies – Who I Am (03:06)
1-06. Johnny Blue Skies – Right Kind of Dream (05:17)
1-07. Johnny Blue Skies – Mint Tea (03:37)
1-08. Johnny Blue Skies – One For The Road (08:55)

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