Emmy-nominated singer/songwriter and musician The White Buffalo has shared the haunting new single and video “Not Today,” out today, watch HERE. The song is the first single to be unveiled from his extraordinary forthcoming album Year Of The Dark Horse, set for release November 11 on Snakefarm Records, pre-order the album, HERE.
Featuring the evocative vocals from Jake Smith (The White Buffalo) “Not Today” immediately draws the listener with its hopeful metaphor of the start of a new year which fades through a horserace and wanes as the days tick on until ultimately another year has passed us by. Jake sings: “Resolutions set, Life’s a boundless buffet, Find what’s pure and true, Strangulate my wicked ways, The month moves on and out resolutions fade, Can’t recall what they were, Were they ever even made? Pull It together man, Back on your horse and in the race, thought you were the favorite boy, In the stretch I pull up lame; Morning comes and goes I lie in bed awake, Maybe tomorrow, but no, not today; Today… The rise and fall so swift, invite the tired bones of winter to come on in.”
Recorded at Neon Cross Studios in Nashville, TN with Jay Joyce, “My forthcoming album is a sonic and lyrical journey of one lunar year in one man’s life” says Jake Smith, aka The White Buffalo. “Four seasons in 12 songs… Loosely based on my twisted truths and adventures. I wanted to show the seasonal effect on the heart and the mind. I also wanted to abandon, sonically, everything. Escape the acoustic clutches and genres I’ve been associated with and shackled to. I wanted to make my headphones album. Every song bleeds into the next.”
Watch and share the trailer for the film The White Buffalo: Year Of The Dark Horse, HERE.
Adds Smith, “I created a visual companion as an art film comprised of vignettes for each of the 12 songs. Part performance art, part cinema, the film The White Buffalo: Year Of The Dark Horse will take you, on the emotional roller coaster of this album Four directors take three song sections of the album and each taking a season into another. Winter to spring, spring into summer, and so on. Made to be consumed in one sitting. Hopefully mildly sedated or elevated.”
The White Buffalo will return this fall with his eighth studio album titled Year Of The Dark Horse. The Oregon-born, Southern California-bred artist completed the record with GRAMMY Award-winning producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Brothers Osborne, Fidlar) at his Neon Cross studio in Nashville.
Roughly based around the shifting of the seasons paralleled with the shifting of a relationship, on Year Of The Dark Horse, Smith continues his evocative storytelling through emotionally weighted songs that allow the imagination of the listener to play an important part throughout; the music builds on a tale of debauchery and blame, of love and loss, a life lived against the odds, the whole thing set in one lunar year, following our anti-hero through the highs and lows of the seasons.
From highlights “Kingdom For A Fool,” “52 Card Pickup,” “Donna,” and more, Year Of The Dark Horse offers an invigorating and wonderfully unpredictable listen. A collection of 12 musical vignettes individual yet constant in flow, it’s The White Buffalo’s most ambitious and well-rounded work to date, with the full scope of Smith’s songwriting craft on view.
Now with seven albums plus various EPs in its locker The White Buffalo--is rounded out by touring/recording compadres Christopher Hoffee, bassist/keyboards/guitars, and drummer Matt Lynott.
NPR’s All Songs Considered tagged The White Buffalo as an “amazing storyteller,” the Los Angeles Times added “Smith’s baritone echoes with villains and misfits, drunks, and philistines,” and Classic Rock magazine declared TWB “America’s darkest country/blues export…imagine a blue collar Tom Waits, or Nick Cave pumping gas in a station just off the highway.”
A powerful and prolific storyteller through his songcraft, Smith’s body of work includes prominent song and soundtrack placements in the worlds of TV and film including the shows Sons Of Anarchy, This Is Us, Californication, The Punisher, The Terminal List, and the films Shelter, Safe Haven and West of Memphis. The White Buffalo’s dark blues and light Americana-roots-tinged folk provided a soundtrack of tunes for the entire seven season run of the FX original series Sons of Anarchy, which included 11 songs overall. The last song in the series finale for SOA “Come Join The Murder,” earned The White Buffalo his first-ever Emmy-Award Nomination.
The White Buffalo kick off a nationwide Fall U.S. headlining tour on Friday, November 4 in Las Vegas, NV.
