Xn Rowe, self described as a Californian from Wisconsin living in Tennessee dreaming of Texas. Growing up in what he calls a 'typical divorced family, you know, making sure the airline industry, moving companies, the government, and the kids all got fed'. Shuffled between southern California, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and the Milwaukee area Xn (pronounced Christian), ever on the move - was destined for a quest to find not only home but the meaning of home. A life on the road. Documenting the highs and lows of adventure and connection. Playing dive bars, theatres, and street corners; shaking laundry machines for quarters to spend a night out with the people. 'Funny how i gave it all away, from the mornings first light, to the women in the night in the good land'. Being a songwriter, multi instrumentalist, and performer for 20 years has found a good outlet for processing the spinning world outside and finding some sort of an inner connection.
Robert Earl Keen once sang, “the road goes on forever but the party never ends” and that seems to be the mantra of Wisconsinite via Nashville’s Xn Rowe, on his upcoming album Goodbye, Goodland. You won’t find beer popping anthems and songs of celebrating youth on a pontoon in this almost re-coming of age story, but rather as Frankie Andrews (Old Time Music) one describes Keen’s classic as a ‘tribute to the human spirit and our ongoing search for adventure, love, and meaning’. This sits true with the elephant in the room that Rowe, writer of “Millennial Blues”, will now be releasing his debut solo album just before his 35th birthday. With this perspective Goodbye, Goodland (the album) and especially as the title track reads almost as a swan song of sorts. Despite the fact that Rowe has been performing and songwriting under his given name (Christian Rowe), pseudonyms, as well as in midwest bands such as Milwaukee’s Cub Pilot for the better part of 20 years, this will be his first official release.
At first, dancing suspiciously close to tired sad-boy tropes, the album Goodbye, Goodland continues with distancing itself through honest themes of failure, growth, and that never ending road that are so deeply entrenched in the album's lyrics and also in the northwoods sap-covered nostalgic sound that carries them. Like the best of Americana, it declares a time that never was and yet always has been. Yet this collection is fun, this is a road trip joyride. The album’s sound is all around sonically raw, natural, and direct as captured at Honeytone Studios, a forerunner in an impressive production scene growing out of the middle coast. Tasteful embellishments from the likes of Chicken Wire Empire’s Jordan Kroeger making appearances on bass, and also from Nashville's own Americana singer-songwriter Sophie Gault appearing with her cool & perceptive vibrato is a warmly welcomed singing partner throughout the record. All of which is laid over reserved-yet-attuned piano lines from Anthony Deutsch. Xn’s husky baritone voice often evokes an alternative universe in which younger days versions of Nick Cave, Tom Waits, or Randy Newman joins in with The Band or Neil Young in roots-rock servitude of the American spirit. This sits behind his rhythmically calculated and emotive lyrics. Yet just as things start to come together we are pushed out of the garden, and find ourselves grappling with the meaning of home. Leather and all. It’s a story we all learn, and the road goes on forever…
