Willi Carlisle Flies Forth on Winged Victory

Missouri​-based folksinger Willi Carlisle has announced his highly anticipated self-produced fourth studio album, Winged Victory, set to release on June 27 via Signature Sounds. The upcoming album sees Carlisle return with his signature blend of traditionally-rooted folk music and kaleidoscope of oddball characters to confer with his core tenets in even more overt and provocative ways.

Today, he is sharing the first single from the 11-track set, “Work is Work,” one of many songs on the upcoming album that invites listeners to pause and consider the state of things. "Did you heed the call? Were you led astray? / Work is work, or it wouldn’t pay," he sings, as he imagines grace free from the haints of meaningless production and profit. "Work is Work" is available now on all streaming platforms.

Of the new song, Carlisle offers, "With 'Work is Work,' I wanted to write a bluegrass tune, and I wanted to try to make a direct address of my own [à la the album's opening cover of 'We Have Fed You All For 1000 Years' written by an anonymous Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) worker]. I believe that after a certain point of creature comfort and stability, money doesn’t make you happier. So what are we doing with our precious time? I wrote it in a motel room along the Mississippi River. The room was full of bedbugs, and I’d just left New Orleans, a city that seems to be thriving even as it falls into the ocean. I finished the song in about an hour. I want people to know that they aren’t free from the terrible things that work does to people, from the awful transmutation of labor into money, but that the sacrifice isn’t meaningless."

He is intent on creating art and a well-rounded life in a broken world.  

"These songs feel poised on the edge of the apocalypse, or at least at the beginning of a great transformation in America," says Carlisle. "During this borrowed time, the weirdos, cowboys, and dreamers in these songs dare to love, and often pay for it with blood." The new music both indulges a few of Carlisle’s 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. It should be understood as a reflection: reveling in the beauty of tiny, monetarily-worthless moments and things, offering with them a consideration of our innate humanity. "A good folk music response to the troubles of the First World is saying ‘what are the little things that we can do … where can we move the needle?" Carlisle explains. 

In celebration of the release, Carlisle will tour extensively across the United States this fall with 42 new headlining shows announced today. He is also touring in the UK and Netherlands this summer and appearing at multiple upcoming Folk Festivals, including FreshGrass, Winnipeg, Mariposa, Calgary, Canmore, Blue Ox, and more, in addition to an opening slot for multi-GRAMMY Award-winning folk artist Sierra Ferrell in Edmonton. Please see below for full tour details.

Available for pre-save and pre-order now HERE (including vinyl at Bandcamp). Winged Victory will be out on Friday, June 27th.

Willi Carlisle – Official, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Spotify