June 2023
Dear Life Records
1. Genevieve
2. Violent Jubilee (feat. Michael Cormier-O’Leary)
3. Town in Decline (feat. Indigo De Souza)
4. Trouble
5. Late Hour
6. Rockfort Bay
7. Open Water
8. Oil Leak
9. Searchers
10. A Clown Like Me
LISTEN
Fust’s first record Evil Joy was a self-described bitter domestic drama obsessed with the kitchen-sink passage of time measured by moments of leaving, returning, leaving, and returning. With Genevieve, we find a different kind of leaving: leaving behind, leaving one’s old ways, starting anew, a small life together, in “Family Country.” Thus, Genevieve: an historical name for both the saintly and the ordinary, the peasantry and the family, the community and the wife, extreme devotion and absolute forbearance. While sonically and instrumentally louder than Evil Joy, Genevieve is thematically more quiet about its pains—more settled in its ways. It is a collection of pathetic love stories written in dedication to “small life,” moving from gentle exceptions (“I can take the late hours if you’re with me”) to pitiful admissions (“I’m never going to change when I leave…”). What comes with a quiet life? The highest forms of beauty, but we also find here songs of unspeaking companions, the sublime dread of having children, the balance of humility and humiliation, playing the fool for the greater good, and… budget birthday parties. With these stories of possible growth, Genevieve can’t help but also feature tried and true examples of crisis and repression: seeking a bygone lifestyle in an old friend who hasn’t changed much over the years, pissing contests, search parties as the form of community for melancholics with no clue what they’ve lost, old flames you won't let go and dying flames you won’t admit. Genevieve is a road movie and a local theatrical production of and by a community struggling to hold itself together, a record of too many names and too many places: Sarah Lee, John and Angel, Jimmy, Sam, Rockfort Bay, New England, California, Jackson, Silent City, Bridge Street, Fourth Avenue, and of course Genevieve. How do we keep up with everybody, how do we stay close to those we love? Can we begin to understand the most difficult thing, that the better the worse?
Album Credits
Recorded at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, NC
Alex Farrar: Engineering, Mixing, Mastering
Aaron Dowdy: Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keyboards
Avery Sullivan: Drums, Lap, Vocals
Frank Meadows: Piano, Vocals
Justin Morris: Pedal Steel, Guitar, Vocals
John Wallace: Guitar, Vocals
Oliver Child-Lanning: Bass, Organ, Vocals
Courtney Werner: Fiddle (Oil Leak)
Indigo De Souza: Vocals (Town in Decline, Oil Leak)
Michael Cormier O’Leary: Vocals (Violent Jubilee)
MJ Lenderman: Guitar (Trouble)
Xandy Chelmis: Pedal Steel (Trouble, A Clown Like Me)
Sasha Popovici: Bass (Late Hour)
Alex Farrar: Lap Steel (Town in Decline)
Charlie Boss: Photos of Band
Peter Lewis: Insert Drawing
Sasha Popovici: Paintings
Aaron Dowdy: Design
Video by John Winn