Folksinger Willi Carlisle holds tight the conviction that love is bigger than hate, and no-one is expendable. Carlisle’s music has always been a dance between absurdity, spectacle, and philosophy. On his fourth studio album, Winged Victory, Carlisle returns with his signature blend of traditionally-rooted folk music and kaleidoscope of oddball characters to confer with his core tenets in more overt and provocative ways.

Carlisle delivers Victory as the next chapter in his long-running direct address to the hope that by understanding our collective suffering we might be free of it. He’s intent on creating art and a well-rounded life in a broken world. The idea began with 2022’s Peculiar, Missouri when Carlisle proclaimed “your heart’s a big tent, everybody gets in.” After gathering together all the world’s weirdos and misfits under the big tent, with 2024’s Critterland, Carlisle let them loose into the world. Now, on Winged Victory, they speak for themselves, unencumbered by social expectations.

Victory, Carlisle’s first self-produced album, will be released June 27 via Signature Sounds. It both indulges a few of his wildest dreams (including a version of Richard Thompson’s “Beeswing,” among several traditional folk song covers), and feels like the inevitable sequel to Critterland’s charismatic menagerie of chaos. Though occasionally raunchy, and routinely provocative, Victory is not afraid to make a spectacle for the sake of a point. Victory should be understood as a reflection. It revels in the beauty of tiny, monetarily-worthless moments and things, offering with them a consideration of our innate humanity.

While only a relatively short time since the van-dwelling singer-songwriter Olive Klug has fully pursued the nontraditional life of a touring musician, their sophomore album Lost Dog finds them contemplating a propensity for adventure no matter what avenue of love and loss it leads down. Although still very young, on Lost Dog Klug artfully addresses “aging as a neurodivergent free spirit” on the road with an unarguably talented ability to fearlessly voice deeply honest emotions through captivating storytelling.

Gentle at the start, album opener “Taking Punches From the Breeze” gets its title from Klug’s self-described nature of “letting the wind take them wherever they’re meant to be.” As more instrumentation fills in alongside fingerpicked guitar and Klug’s soft croon, a shuffling drum beat arrives under lyrical imagery of life’s new direction and the ups and downs of being beholden to the breeze.

Deemed by Klug as “the happiest song you’ll ever hear about unrequited love,” “What to Make of Me” is a “zydeco-inspired romp” so full of life and self-assuredness that there’s hardly room to dwell on anything remotely devastating. Pure unshakeable confidence clocking in at just under three minutes, this tune is much like the short-term romance that inspired it with the added benefit of being able to listen on repeat.

“No one is their best self in the first few weeks following a big breakup,” explains Klug. “And the song ‘Cold War’ demonstrates how this manifests in our modern world.” Poignant and precise, the stark recording of guitar, bass, haunting strings and vocals accentuate a very twenty-something realization on ended relationships and the proclivity to stalk the internet thereafter:

“The cold war has begun
Of who can prove that they’re having the most fun,
Through tiny screens and Spotify streams
Trying to prove to the other that we won”

“The song shows us parts of ourselves we might not always be proud of,” says Klug. “But can undeniably relate to.”

A “take on Paul Simon’s wordy magical chaos,” “Train of Thought” is an experimentation into the world of abstract metaphors compared to Klug’s usual literal storytelling style. On the surface the fun and frolic of wordplay and rhythm are countered by the personal meaning to Klug, and letting the listener in to what it’s like to be neurodivergent and how they have “recently embraced the internal chaos instead of trying so hard to control and repress it.” Additionally, lines like “and they try to button up my suit and tie in an attempt to hold me back but I’m this strange old conductor wearing pearls and a backwards baseball cap” highlight how their “nontraditional gender presentation is intrinsically linked to this neurodivergence and desire to resist societal pressures.”

The “fast-paced folk punk anthem” “Opposite Action” creatively puts Klug’s “under-utilized psychology B.A” to use – taking a therapeutic concept for a song name and putting its practice of encouraging “patients to do the opposite of what their emotions are telling them to do” in the chorus. Frustrated after applying these methods and not attaining immediate results during a depressive episode in the summer of 2023, Klug’s stream of consciousness style verses offer emotional release and the recognition that getting older and more responsible can feel like an inner-battle when the old patterns want to “give into the worst of me sometimes.”

Slowing down the tempo, “Lost Dog” is a melancholic examination of lifestyle choices. “It’s about watching your peers settle down into serious relationships and buy houses and wonder if you made the right decision to choose freedom and independence,” says Klug. “It’s about learning that the other side of the freedom/independence coin is often instability and loneliness.” Klug carefully acknowledges that their career can be captivating to many as “a wanderer’s lifestyle,”but others’ admiration can quickly turn to contempt as they age – a feeling expressed through the track’s titular metaphor in the chorus.

Revisiting the same break up depicted in “Cold War,” the minimalist ballad of “One Dimension” harnesses the healing power of hindsight. “With more time to process,” explains Klug. “It’s much easier to come to terms with the nuance in a relationship and recognize that the anger and vengeance that first arise after a breakup are often a coping skill for processing the real sadness and loss of cutting ties with someone you were once vulnerable enough to share your life with.”

Already serving as a special moment in Klug’s live set, Lost Dog ends with the enchanting and existential “Fleeting.” Reflecting on the complexities of connection, this swaying track is enhanced by crowd participation on the lullaby-like chorus “it’s fleeting, I’m better when I’m leaving” – a sung mantra between artist and audience of appreciating the present when departure is imminent.

Lost Dog was produced and engineered by Isaiah Beard (Jobi Riccio) and recorded at Club Roar in Nashville, TN.