Orville Peck Stampede (CD)

(Warner Records) 15 tracks

Adventurous

Masked cowboy Orville Peck is back with his new album “Stampede”. The musician still hides his face behind a fringed mask and continues to combine his love of country music from the 60s and 70s with a modern musical approach regardless of genre boundaries.

His first two albums were celebrated for their modernization of a classic sound and explicit treatment of queer themes in an often conservative genre. On “Stampede”, Orville Peck goes one step further and has found a suitable duet partner for each of the 15 songs. With Willie Nelson, he takes on “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other”, perhaps the first gay country song ever, which Nelson covered back in 2006. And Orville Peck was even able to win over Sir Elton John himself for his version of “Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting”.

In addition to many up-and-coming country acts, artists as diverse as Beck, Kylie Minogue and DJ and producer Diplo are also on board. For Orville Peck, this was a conscious decision to cover as wide a musical spectrum as possible: “I wanted to make sure that every single song on the album felt like a true 50/50 collaboration between myself and the style, sound and genre of the other artists. 'Stampede' is definitely the most adventurous thing I've ever done in this genre. The album has some of the most country-heavy songs I've ever done and some of the least country-heavy songs I've ever done.”