Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Will Oldham aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Oldham has a long history of making music, under various monikers such as Palace Brothers/Palace Music/Palace Songs, his own name and (most notably) Bonnie "Prince" Billy. We Are Together Again, released by No Quarter Records on Friday March 6th, 2026, is his latest album as Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Find out more about Bonnie "Prince" Billy (and purchase their music) here; https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/

Nick's Pick of the Week is Crooked Fingers' Swet Deth, which was released on Friday February 27th. You can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here; https://crookedfingers.bandcamp.com/album/swet-deth and my review can be read below.

Crooked Fingers: Swet Deth (Merge Records)

Released 27th February 2026

Just prior to the release of Swet Deth, Crooked Fingers’ founder, frontman and lone constant member, Eric Bachmann, had his own brush with death, in the form of a heart attack. Bachmann survived, although he was required to cancel any tour dates scheduled in support of the album, at least until his health issues could be managed. It is tempting, therefore, to listen to much of the music on Crooked Fingers’ first album in fifteen years and hear a middle-aged man musing on his own impermanence, but only half of that is true.

Much of Swet Deth is a reckoning with mortality, just not Bachmann’s own. The record was completed before his heart attack —which occurred around Halloween of 2025— and as much as the album’s songs have a preoccupation with dying, this (more or less) coincides with the fact that Bachmann has reached the age where friends and family are (sadly, but inevitably) starting to pass on. Adding further coincidence (and perhaps, insult to injury) the album’s artwork was created by Bachmann’s nine-year-old son and —rather prominently— features a grave adorned with the singer’s name —something Bachmann himself has described as “prescient.”

One of the great, if under-appreciated, songwriters of the early-mid 1990s, post-grunge, indie-rock boom, Bachmann formed and fronted Archers Of Loaf, an outfit that was lauded for their acerbic lyrics, energetic shows and discordant (yet catchy) music. Archers Of Loaf stuck it out until 1998.  Following their dissolution, Bachmann founded Crooked Fingers, who —despite never formally announcing their hiatus— stopped producing music around 2011 when Bachmann began recording and releasing albums under his own name.

Archers Of Loaf reformed as a live band in 2011 and released their (likely) final album, Reason In Decline, in 2022. Bachmann is loath to label the group as over, but has indicated in interviews that various members’ lack of interest in playing shows and recording forms a barrier to the group’s continued existence. All the while, Crooked Fingers lay dormant and forgotten —by many— until now,  when Bachmann found himself working on several songs that required more expansive musical arrangements than he felt fit for a solo release. Enter Merge Records, who were already finalising a suite of Crooked Fingers reissues, to suggest that perhaps it was time to dust off the old moniker and release some new music as Crooked Fingers.

Manyof the songs on Swet Deth are classic Bachmann and any longtime fan is unlikely to be disappointed by the offerings here. Cold Waves (featuring Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan) opens the record and —despite its acoustic beginnings— is charged with all the power-pop gusto one would expect from the combo of Bachmann and McCaughan. Spray Tan Speed Queen (In A German Car) is classic catchiness, fused with a bit of Ennio Morricone melodrama, to soundtrack a story of downtrodden pessimism brightened by an unexpected and uncharacteristically human interaction in Las Vegas, of all places. 

Haunted (featuring Sharon Van Etten) is another obvious highlight, a wonderfully repetitive ode to regret; Bachmann and Van Etten’s vocals pair together perfectly to create an especially luminescent example of indie-pop perfection. Hospital is, perhaps, the most predictive piece of songwriting Bachmann has ever done. “My heart spilled out / Ain’t no place to die, it's impossible,” speaks far more foresightedly to the songwriter’s health issues than anything else on Swet Deth, making one wonder if Bachmann should try reading fortunes for a change —or, perhaps, purchase a lottery ticket!

Swet Deth is not just a brilliant comeback record, for Crooked Fingers at least, but another excellent entry in Bachmann’s —almost— daunting discography. As an occupant of (and champion for) the underground, Bachmann’s songwriting efforts are often unappreciated in a much wider and broader sense. With Swet Deth, he may have made a record that will finally propel him beyond the confines of his devoted fanbase of indie snobs and into the wider consciousness of a much larger audience; in doing so, may Eric Bachmann live long and prosper.

Nick Stephan