NOW SPINNING
TRANSPARENT TOWNS
John Calvin Abney
FOLK ROCK | AMERICANA • 2025 • TIN CANYON RECORDS
John Calvin Abney spent most of 2022 touring hundreds of shows across the country. Early in 2023, in San Francisco, his voice gave out. Vocal cord surgery followed, along with months of enforced silence, and a stretch where he also lost his father and both grandmothers.
'Transparent Towns' came out of that quiet. It's his seventh studio album, written while he couldn't sing, and he's described it as being about "living with memory without drowning in nostalgia." The songs are full of small-town Oklahoma: old cafes, paid parking lots where venues used to be, in Abney’s words, "copies of copies."
Abney grew up in Tulsa, studied at the University of Oklahoma, and spent years as a sideman for the excellent John Moreland, working as engineer, co-writer and multi-instrumentalist. He self-produced this one at Cardinal Song near Oklahoma City, with Michael Trepagnier mixing and engineering, and with harmonies from Lydia Loveless and his old boss Moreland.
Reviewers keep reaching for Laurel Canyon, Beatles hooks and Brian Wilson layers, and that’s all in-there for sure, but there’s more in these tight ten tracks over 38 minutes. Opener 'Last Chance,' rides pedal steel and shimmering electric guitar and builds off all of those influences, but filters them through a Red Dirt haze. The title track features guest vocals from Lydia Loveless and Megan Palmer’s killer fiddle and Wurlitzer work touches every song.
Abney lives in Austin now, and we found him during one of his regular sets around town a while back. He’s always terrific live, and this album, perhaps more than any of his earlier releases, captures the essence of his live set.
This is a record from someone who lost, and then found his voice again. And it sounds like he knows it.
LISTEN & BUY
If at all possible, buy it at your local record store.