Will Stratton – The Changing Wilderness review

If folk was one of the original forms of storytelling, some of it’s charachter was leeched away in the last decade by neckerchief-clad frauds. Thankfully that fad seems to be over, leaving writers like Will Stratton to reclaim the medium’s latent, centuries-old power and purity of form.

A native of upstate New York, Stratton has used the global pause to recast his own direction, consciously choosing to focus less on himself and apply a fresh, outward gazing lense at an America which has become unrecognisable to him in the last five or so years.

The Changing Wilderness channels both residual anger and a new fortitude, regret but an acknowledgement that whatever troubles lay on a doom-scrolled phone or the door’s other side, there are still chances of redemption. For himself Stratton pipes most frequently in the easy style of Nick Drake, but on Infertile Air and Fate’s Ghost he skewers the excesses of nation state with an eloquent manifesto, whilst the modest strings of Black Hole add a welcome urgency to a pastoral backdrop. Welcome to the quiet revolution.

You can read a full review here.