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SPOTLIGHT: Jude Brothers - "Oak & Ache" [VIDEO]

Jude Brothers - Photo by Kim Awa

Editor's Note: Jude Brothers, whose new LP titled Dogwood Maiden Voyage is due out September 25 via Gar Hole Records, is No Depression's Spotlight Artist for September 2026. Check out a feature profile about Brothers here and stay tuned all month for more about this Ozarks singer-songwriter.

One of the best things about sharing No Depression's platform with working musicians is when they choose to talk about their art in their own words. This helps listeners gain context and deeper meanings, and ultimate form stronger connections with the songs, themselves. For this exclusive performance of "Oak & Ache," harpist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter Jude Brothers ends the solo-acoustic version with a brief explanation:

"'Oak & Ache' is about realizing — and carrying the awareness — that I'm in a non-consensual blood-pact with a system that is destroying everything and everyone that I love, and growing the resolve to challenge and live and work outside of that system by gaining inspiration from the forest."

Brothers made sure to record this version of the song in nature, sitting on a slap of rock, with a creek twinkling subtly behind them. Check out the new song below.

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