“We kissed the ring from the billionaire’s sleeve, yeah/
We let ‘em poison the roots/
I’d like my people and yours to see/
All of the earth in its bloom…”
Alt-country singer-songwriter Jaime Wyatt has announced her upcoming album, Feel Good, to be released on November 3 on New West Records, with a fiery lead single, “World Worth Keeping,” and its accompanying video. The track, though overarchingly optimistic and forward-looking, features Wyatt’s booming country croon dripping both with righteous anger and a passionate love for the Earth. The content here is more than apropos for a summer of striking, of record-setting ocean and air temperatures, and of ongoing natural disasters like wildfires, tornadoes, and torrential downpours. Wyatt’s particular brand of queer alt-country is perfectly poised to tackle issues such as these and to offer an imagination of the future that isn’t just despairing and defeatist. Like Iris Dement on “Workin’ on a World,” Wyatt chooses to see a redeemable planet, instead of a lost cause, utilizing hope not as a privileged denial of the stark realities of our everyday, but as a radical act of resistance – resistance queer folks engage in perpetually, within or without hope.
Feel Good was produced by Black Pumas‘ Adrian Quesada and builds on Wyatt’s rhinestoned and glamorous Western-informed Americana sounds, folding in R&B, country soul, and so many more roots influences. There’s a confidence and ease Wyatt continues to grow into following her critically-acclaimed prior albums. “A lot of us grow up feeling like we have to hide who we are just to be accepted, but that comes from a place of fear and judgment,” Wyatt explains via press release. “I wrote these songs as a way of letting go of all that, as permission to feel good.”
Photo Credit: Jody Domingue
