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Like so many individuals stuck in self-isolation in their apartments, Andrew Laningham started to dream about wide open expanses. But the pandemic wasn’t causing him to fantasize about some idyllic wilderness; Laningham was dreaming about the rural Alabama as he knows it, the full-spectrum reality of his youth, both in its beauties and its pains. So he spent his quarantine time as if compelled, producing what would come to be Pastoral, the latest from his band, Phantom Limb. By infusing a blend of garage pop songwriting and Animal Collective electronic tweaking with chopped and screwed samples of preachers and comedians found in thrift stores throughout the American South, Laningham digs at the preconceptions of the South specifically and rural life in general—and how supposedly simple ideas like “happiness” and “isolation” get messier with each new day.

With support from Loudness War and Bad Misters.