Jeff Tweedy, War On Drugs Among Artists On North Carolina Benefit Compilation
Jeff Tweedy, The War On Drugs, Fleet Foxes and R.E.M. are among the acts who have contributed to a 136-song compilation of unreleased recordings benefitting Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina.
Cardinals At The Window is out now, with funds going to Rural Organizing and Resilience, BeLoved Asheville, and the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. You can buy the album for $10 at Bandcamp.
Three North Carolina natives organized the compilation: musician Libby Rodenbough, New Commute founder David Walker, and journalist Grayson Haver Currin. Several artists contributed original, unreleased songs to the compilation. Among them are MJ Lederman, Sharon Van Etten, the Mountain Goats, Hotline TNT, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Go-Betweens, Sylvan Esso, Lonnie Holley, Geologist, and Real Estate.
Others contributing covers, live recordings, and more include Helado Negro, Angel Olsen, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Jason Isbell, Feist, Yasmin Williams, Mary Lattimore, William Tyler, Bill Orcutt, Les Savy Fav, Tyler Childers, the Decemberists, Drive-By Truckers, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and Phish.
Organizer Libby Rodenbough, who was on tour with the Dead Tongues when the storm hit her home, said in a press release, “In the aftermath of a ‘natural disaster,’ it’s important to situate this manifestation of ecological collapse within a history of inequitable exploitation of land and people. This is a region that has suffered in the name of human progress for a long time. I hope we’re going to take this opportunity to start building a different kind of world in Western North Carolina and beyond.”
Grayson Haver Currin wrote, “Cardinals at the Window — named for an expression we’ve all heard in Appalachia, meaning that there’s a little luck on the way—is our modest attempt to help the best we can, to do what we might to help restore some small piece of a place so many of us love so much. Friends far and wide instantly offered up their work, only with the caveat that there be something more they could soon do, too. It is very tempting to curse the rain and the water that drowned and destroyed so much of Appalachia. Most of the time, though, it is part of what makes the place special, unforgettable, unique — a home worth keeping, where land and water and sky merge into perfect union, natural and spellbinding.”