Chivalrous Amoekons
photo by Ashley Stinson

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Angel Olsen & friends releasing Mekons tribute LP this week (song stream)

Angel Olsen and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (aka Will Oldham) are both having an incredibly busy year. Angel already released one of 2016’s best albums with My Woman, plus she contributed to the Mount Moriah and Cass McCombs albums. Will put out a Peel Sessions comp and a collab LP with Bitchin Bajas, plus contributed to LPs by Xylouris White and Matt Kivel (and definitely more that we’re forgetting). Both of them were also on that huge Grateful Dead tribute album. This week they’ll release an album together that pays tribute to another band, Mekons.

The 2012 Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy band — which had Will joined by Angel Olsen, plus Ben Boye, Van Campbell, Danny Kiely, and Emmett Kelly of The Cairo Gang — had done a whole set of Mekons covers on tour, and now they’re releasing an album of those covers under the name Chivalrous Amoekons. It’s called Fantastic Voyage, and it comes out this Friday (9/16) via Sea Note. Ahead of its release, you can stream “Oblivion,” which is a good taste of how well this crew takes on Mekons material. In place of the original’s single lead vocal, Will and Angel do harmonies that hearken back to the late ’60s San Francisco psych scene (there’s definitely a little Grace Slick/Paul Kantner in there). Listen:

Proceeds from album sales will go to The Roots of Music in New Orleans.

Angel Olsen is on tour with her new six-piece band and support from Alex Cameron. The tour hits NYC this weekend for sold-out shows at Webster Hall on Saturday (9/17) and Warsaw on Sunday (9/18).