Since following up her critically lauded 2012 solo outing
The Mechanics of Hovering Flight with the more band-assisted
It Can Be Done! (2013), Pacific Northwesterner
Kendl Winter has logged endless miles and released a daunting five albums as one-half of indie folk duo
the Lowest Pair, with fellow banjoist/singer Palmer T. Lee. With four of those five albums arriving in 2015 and 2016 alone, it's a wonder she was able to write as winsome and thoughtful a collection as
Stumbler's Business, her first solo release in five years. A measured mix of earthy warmth and spectral dream-folk, it's a departure from her more old-timey work with Lee, relying on big atmospheric reverbs and occasional accents of distorted guitar and organ to complement its more organic and acoustic elements. Written largely while on tour, the songs are fraught with the emotions and visions that extended travel can inspire, from untethered loneliness and love found to spirited snapshots of sights seen and connections made away from home. On the dusky opener "The River's Will,"
Winter looks to the unbending will of nature to help navigate hard times, while the sparse and haunting "Nebraska" moves dreamily through the blue highways of regret. On standout track "The Artesian Well," she sings of human nature and resilience to a gently picked banjo while the soaring and experimental "Rise and Fall" turns an anxious phrase of "how am I to breathe now" into a lush meditation. As
Winter applies her friendly, lilting voice to these frequently sad and deeply poetic ruminations on change, it's easy to hear the mix of fragility and determination that she calls "Stumbler's Business," described in the album's liner notes as "the business of falling and catching yourself, or not, scraping your knees, climbing out of the piles, trying again, knowing that stumbling is part of growing, forgetting, learning again, and again." ~ Timothy Monger