Sunday 03th May 2026
Location: (Roots Festival 2026)
Chris Eckman is one of those songwriters with the alchemist’s touch. He’s proved it over the years as the songwriter of the Seattle rock-folk band The Walkabouts, as well as across a lauded six album solo career. His songs have been recorded by Townes Van Zandt, Steve Wynn, Willard Grant Conspiracy (and others), and his last album, the spare, haunted Where the Spirit Rests, won the prestigious German Record Critics Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in 2021. Three and a half years later he’s back with The Land We Knew the Best, and new stories to tell. It all began to take shape in early 2022, when he settled in to start composing songs for the record. “I don’t really write in fits and starts,” he explains. “I tend to have concentrated periods of writing. I was glad this didn’t take eight years to get going, like the last one. I’d found something of a different voice doing Where the Spirit Rests and it was still there when I picked up the guitar again.” Yet this isn’t just a continuation, it’s not the same character. Time has passed, but maybe more importantly, the geography has altered. The songs on The Land We Knew the Best aren’t populated by the broken people and tumbledown, raw landscapes of the American West that has been the setting for much of his previous work. He’s lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia for many years, and it’s seeped into his consciousness. Not just the city, but also the mountainous and thickly forested nature that surrounds it. “I wanted that specific sense of place in these songs,” Eckman says. “I find a lot of solace and inspiration in the nature here. I walk a lot in the mountains and by now I have a strong connection to my adopted home. Place creates certain atmospheres and exploring that has always been important to my music.” That atmosphere is everywhere; in the “marshland fog” that envelops “The Cranes,” in the starlit mountaintops of “Running Hot” and in the dusk-tinged ridgelines of “Laments.” The Land We Knew the Best has its own distinctive landscape. Its own emotional geography. The change isn’t just apparent in the lyrics; it suffuses the music, too. Where the Spirit Rests was so sparse it stood almost naked. Here, the sound is fuller, warmer and more textured, creating a very different frame for the songs. This is most evident in the lush, heartbreaking opener, “Genevieve,” which features plaintive piano figures and hushed backing vocals from Slovenian singer-songwriter Jana Beltran (who also sings on three other songs) and majestic strings courtesy of Belgian composer/instrumentalist Catherine Graindorge (Iggy Pop, Nick Cave). It is like a widescreen version of a Raymond Carver short story; distilled images from an upended life. The seasons pass, but by the end, the narrator is still alone, the wish for Genevieve’s return unanswered. “Genevieve come home / I’ve been taking care / Finally got my act together.” “There’s surely a sense of loss in the album, but it’s also about trying to take control
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