Photo by Citizen Kane Wayne

Today, Nashville, Tenn.’s Rayland Baxter announced his new and fourth studio LP, If I Were A Butterfly, will release on Nov. 4 via ATO. In celebration of the occasion, the eclectic musician shared the title track of the project along with a video directed by Citizen Kane Wayne.

On the track, Baxter silkily spreads cavernous lyrics doused and layered in psychedelia over an assortment of horns, strings, flutes and backing vocals from Sophia Rose and Lennon Stella. The album as a whole was produced by Baxter along with Tim O’Sullivan and Kai Welch.

Of the song, Baxter said, “‘If I were a butterfly’ is just a song about growing up… looking forward…looking back…about life and death…birth and rebirth…evolution and transformation of the mind, body, and spirit.”

According to a release, If I Were A Butterfly comes in the wake of the loss of Baxter’s father, Bucky Baxter, who was Bob Dylan’s longtime pedal steel player and member of Steve Earle’s Dukes. The late and older Baxter will appear on the album along with collaborators Shakey Graves, Zac Cockrell of Alabama Shakes, members of Cage the Elephant, Stella, Rose, Morning Teleportation’s Travis Goodwin, and legendary Motown drummer Miss Bobbye Hall and more.

Much of the project was recorded while Baxter was living alone at Thunder Sound, an abandoned rubber-band factory turned studio in Kentucky, with later sessions taking place in California, Tennessee, Texas and Washington. 

Pre-order If I Were A Butterfly here.

Listen to “If I Were A Butterfly” below.

IF I WERE A BUTTERFLY TRACKLISTING:
If I Were A Butterfly
Billy Goat
Rubberband Man
Buckwheat
Tadpole
Dirty Knees
Graffiti Street
Violence
Thunder Sound
My Argentina