The Cactus Blossoms

with Humbird

Doors 7 p.m. | Show 8 p.m. | All Ages

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The Cactus Blossoms

“Hey baby, do you wanna take a trip with me? / I’ve got a feeling there might be a silver lining all around.” So begins One Day, the captivating new album from critically acclaimed Minneapolis duo The Cactus Blossoms. Sure, the line is an invitation, but more than that, it’s an examination of hope itself, of the tension between optimism and despair that’s defined much of the past few years of American life.

“That idea of finding a silver lining comes up a lot on this record,” says Jack Torrey, who launched the band roughly a decade ago with his brother, Page Burkum. “It’s an acknowledgment that no matter how messed up things might be, people still want to believe in the world and find ways to feel lucky and joyful.”

Written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, One Day explores that brand of defiant optimism with a simplicity and sincerity that belies the uncertainty and chaos that surrounded its creation. The songs are tender and timeless, with straightforward arrangements centered around Torrey and Burkum’s airtight harmonies, and the performances are warm and intimate, delivered with a gentle touch and understated production.

While The Cactus Blossoms have drawn frequent comparisons to other musical siblings like the Everlys and Louvins over the years, One Day often suggests a more soulful, ’70s-inspired palette, hinting at times to Bobby Charles or JJ Cale with its playful Wurlitzer, breezy guitars, and lean, muscular percussion. The band’s classic country and old-school pop roots are still there, of course, but the growth and evolution underlying One Day is obvious, not only in the duo’s writing, but in their core philosophy, as well. “I think we’re more confident now than we’ve ever been,” says Burkum. “We’re comfortable going after whatever feels right and just being true to ourselves and the songs, no matter where that takes us sonically.”

Hailed as "the Twin Cities' most beloved new traditional-country act” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Cactus Blossoms built a devoted local following in the years leading up to their first national release, 2016’s You’re Dreaming, which was produced by friend and tourmate JD McPherson. Dates with Kacey Musgraves, Jenny Lewis, and Lucius followed, as did rave reviews from NPR, who extolled “the brothers’ extraordinary singing,” and the New York Times, who praised their “tightly woven harmonies.”

The band was further catapulted into the spotlight the following year, when David Lynch tapped them to perform in the highly-anticipated return of Twin Peaks, and continued to build on their success with their 2019 follow-up LP, Easy Way, which featured co-writes with Dan Auerbach and led Rolling Stone to laud the duo’s “rock-solid, freak of genetics harmonies.” Audiences were growing, both in the US and Europe, and it seemed that The Cactus Blossoms’ momentum was unstoppable.

“We’d been touring so hard for so long that we decided we’d take a little break to recharge before things picked up again in March of 2020,” says Torrey. “We had no idea at the time that we’d end up being off the road for two whole years.”

Lockdown hit the brothers hard. They’d just begun to get into a new groove of collaborative songwriting, and the band was so fine-tuned from all the relentless touring that they’d made plans to record their next album live in the studio together. Quarantine put a sudden halt to all that, though, and as Minneapolis began to erupt in social and political unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, music began to seem like the least of the duo’s concerns.

“It felt like the whole world was falling apart,” says Burkum. “We had to put things on hold just so we could try to wrap our heads around everything that was happening in Minneapolis and beyond.”

“To be honest, I felt kind of lost,” adds Torrey. “I stopped playing music entirely for a few months because I just didn’t know what to do. I was overwhelmed, and I just had to sit still for a while and wait for the creativity to come back.”

As 2020 stretched on, Torrey and Burkum slowly began to regain their footing, and when it felt safe enough to get together in person, they started kicking ideas back and forth, inviting each other into their respective writing processes earlier than ever before. When it came time to record, the brothers called on longtime collaborator/engineer Alex Hall, who brought his mobile rig up from Chicago so they could cut the album quick and dirty in Burkum’s basement. They kept their circle tight for the sessions, working with their core touring band—which included both their older brother and their cousin—to capture the songs with a feel as close to the live show as possible.

“From the start, we knew we wanted to keep the instrumentation minimal and consistent across the whole album and embrace the dryness that came with recording in Page’s basement,” says Torrey. “We wanted it to sound raw.”

That rawness fuels One Day, which opens with the steady-cruising “Hey Baby.” Like much of The Cactus Blossoms’ catalog, the song operates on multiple levels: take it at face value and it’s a playful little track about a roadtrip in a rusty old truck; zoom out, though, and there’s a deeper message about the power (or naïveté, depending on your perspective) of positive thinking. “I hope it all works out,” the brothers sing in exquisite harmony. “It always works out.”

“I think there’s a sense amongst these characters that you’ve got to keep your chin up or the bad will just get worse,” says Torrey. “Sometimes it feels like the only way for them to survive.”

The bittersweet title track imagines a future in which pain has given way to peace, while the easygoing “Love Tomorrow” considers what it means for the glass to be both half empty and half full at the same time, and the dreamy “Everybody” (which features vocals from Jenny Lewis) convinces itself that everyone’s just doing their best to get by.

“When ‘Everybody’ popped into my head, I just immediately heard it as this back-and-forth kind of thing with Jenny singing the verses,” says Torrey. “She’s had us out on a couple little runs and we think she’s one of the best singers out there, so it was really exciting for us that she was onboard.”

Despite the songs’ repeated insistence on a brighter tomorrow, the darkness and decay of the present often seeps into the music. The menacing “Ballad Of The Unknown,” for instance, paints a heartbreaking portrait of an outcast alienated and left behind by a society that fails to see his humanity; the breezy “Is It Over” finds an old country crooner reckoning with age and mortality as his glory days fade in the rearview mirror; and the aching “I Could Almost Cry” teeters on the brink of total collapse in the face of greed and cynicism.

“Broken lock, broken key / Broken everything but me,” Torrey sings as the rest of the band falls away. “And the door is open wide.”

It’s another invitation that’s more than just an invitation (what is hope, after all, but an open door?), another look at optimism and despair from a band that, like so many of us, finds themselves caught between two worlds: the one they want to believe in, and the one outside their window.

Humbird

It feels good to be right. We crave the satisfaction, the ease. But what about when you’re not so sure? When you’re unsteady, angry, swayable, and doing your damned best anyway?

There’s something refreshingly humane about that uncertainty; about having the guts to try, even if you might be wrong. This is the central tenant of Humbird’s third full-length album, Right On, a radical ethos in this soap-box age, and an effort worth turning up the amps for, resulting in the project’s most electric, playful, mettled record yet.

Siri Undlin (the songwriter behind the moniker) and her collaborators tracked live and to tape over the course of two muggy weeks in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. For a collection of songs unafraid of ambiguity, it’s music that bares its teeth. Anger and dismay sizzle in response to current events. Heartbreak feels like sandpaper, while wildflowers bob and sway in an ever-expanding universe.

Produced by Shane Leonard and featuring regular contributors Pat Keen (bass, synth, percussion) and Pete Quirsfeld (drums and percussion), the majority of the songs showcase the locked-in rock trio, a progression from the contemplative folk musings of Undlin’s previous releases. Even so, Right On incorporates friendly winks to the more whimsical, soundscape-y improvisations that audiences have come to expect from a Humbird performance - electrified, gritty, Midwest Americana with a little magic fairy dust thrown in.

“Right On,” the title track and first song of the album, opens the record with a tone of resigned tenacity. ‘I’m not mad, but I should be / since true love proved unlucky / I cast the dye, I stained my hands / on wrongful judgments and half-baked plans.’ As the song moves through time and space, “being wrong” feels less and less like a failure, and instead transforms into guiding wisdom. The warm tremolo of the guitar maps along the grooves of the rhythm section, creating an atmosphere of inviting imperfection, a clever catalyst for the chorus’ simple melody to launch and land right in the tender part of your sternum.

Other notable tracks include “Child Of Violence,” complete with psych-rock phaser pedals, which explores the legacy and impact of white supremacy in middle America; “Cornfields and Roadkill” focuses in on land stolen for profit, and old-growth forests traded for mono-crops in a sonic landscape reminiscent of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “Song For The Seeds” is a slow-burning synth number, imploring the listener to tear up their lawn. It wields a refrain that will germinate in your mind - a proper earworm.

Through observation and deft questioning, the lyrics land less like a political agenda and more like a hard conversation with a friend. All the while, you can hear the summertime pace where the recording took place, and the steady confidence of songs that have already traveled many miles on the road.

And those miles - they’re hard-earned. For Undlin, growing up steeped in church choirs and traditional Irish ensembles eventually led to conducting extensive folklore and musical research around the world as a Watson Fellow. That work inspired years of DIY touring around North America, including performing around the twin cities one backyard at a time during the pandemic. Undlin continues to expand and experiment as a writer and bandleader in a way that is fluid with each season, and oddly suited for this particular moment. Following the surprise success of the self-released debut album Pharmakon and the pensive reflections of 2021’s Still Life, Right On is the next iteration in her process of witnessing the world in all its complexity and responding with candid consideration.

For loyal fans and new listeners alike, Right On is a mischievously kind offering: a whole heap of songs that are unafraid to bask in the perfectly ordinary and also excruciating possibility that sometimes we’re right, often we’re wrong, but no matter what, music can meet us where we’re at and keep us company along the way.