Alabama’s B.B. Palmer creates music steeped in American country music while keeping an eye on contemporary events. You can hear this on the latest Palmer opus, Krishna Country, a record that bridges the distance between Ravi Shankar and Tom T. Hall with remarkable aplomb.
The latest single, “Simulation Theory” has sounds that harken back to the saturated colors and wide collars of Nashville during the 1960s and 1970s and lyrics that tap into the growing anxieties and conspiracies of the day, replete with references to lizard people, false flags and the nagging question of whether we are, in fact, living in a computer simulation. The lyrics are ripped from today’s virtual headlines but, like those headlines, it’s an important document of a moment in time when even the most skeptical among us has to wonder if the fabric of our lives is dangling by the weakest of threads. Ironically, it’s the surrealness of it all that pulls us back into reality, slaps us in the face, and makes us realize that Jewish space lasers aren’t really a thing.
Guitarist Josh “Bucky” McKenzie says,”This is a song that brings America’s wild conspiracy theories to light. The antithesis of the first single (‘Many Worlds Theory’), ‘Simulation Theory’ lives in a manic state of western cynicism and paranoia. A hymn for all our wayward brothers and sisters out there. The yin to Krishna Country‘s yang.”
The band’s latest offering, Krishna Country, sees the group approaching their craft with a much more expansive worldview — folding traditional Indian sounds into their work and creating a further-mesmerizing brand of ethereal roots music. On paper, it might seem an unexpected or jolting shift in direction, but for B.B. Palmer it’s simply the next step forward in their collective journey.