The oxytocin-induced delirium of an early romance; the blurred line between dreams and memories; the surreal, blink-and-you-miss-it flicker of heat lightning in a dark, distant sky. There is mysticism in the everyday—being in love, planting a garden, reuniting with an old friend as you grieve another. On her third and latest release Planting by the Signs, Kentuckian S.G. Goodman contends with this duality of earth and spirit, conjuring it with an almost shamanistic focus, her powerful quiver acting like a portal between grounded pursuits and the atmospheric energy that guides them.
Made in the wake of a whirlwind few years as Goodman was winding down a prolific run of touring, Planting by the Signs relishes the quiet respite of settling back in, communing with neighbors and relearning the rhythms of home. It signals a return to a slower way of being and how that very act of simplifying can reveal a clearer sense of intuition. “Nature’s Child”, a hypnotic duet with fellow Kentucky troubadour Bonnie “Prince” Billy, paints a gritty love story as bodily as it is fantastical, and the way the two harmonize about the crisp, intoxicating mountain air, you can practically feel it in your veins.
