Punk/folk poet Rafael Vigilantics captures Southwestern gothic in sound on the exceptional fourth album Blue River, Grey Sky, set to release November 13.
Born to a New Mexico folk singer and a father lost to the prison system, Vigilantics left home at 14. “I was a loner and an only child,” he recalled. “When I realized you could make music by yourself, I was sold on it. It was my escape and a place I could tell stories.”
Vigilantics mingled with motorcycle gangs, scuffled with the LAPD, worked (and still works) wildfires, and crossed into Mexico to prizefight in derelict pool halls.
“I remember my uncle sneaking me into CBGB’s in the mid ‘90s when I was like 16 years old, and seeing Jesus lizard play,” he enthused. “That raw dangerous energy was so electric to me, more exciting than anything I’d ever really known.”
With his eponymous punk rock clothing brand, Vigilantics toured with Agnostic Front, Ministry, and Koffin Kats. He watched friends lose their freedom and their lives; broke hearts and had him broken. All pours into the ground-breaking gypsy-punk romanticism and contemporary Americana imagery of Blue River, Grey Sky. Rootsy and wild yet rap-informed, it’s an unorthodox, liberating record that cross-pollinates genres and eras without apology or regret.
“I’d describe it as headphone music, full of landscapes and storytelling,” mulled the heavily-inked Vigilantics, who divides his time between Silver City, NM and Los Angeles. “Very Southwestern and very influenced by the elements of nature, heartbreak, storms, ships lost at sea.”
Largely co-written with producers Noah Harmon (ex-Airborne Toxic Event) and Rian Lewis (Doja Cat, Chromeo), recorded in Harmon’s LA home and out in remote New Mexico, the 15-track Blue River, Grey Sky sings and raps its way through characters and cadences with a grainy, organic authenticity. It’s the restless testament of a man in love with the deep wilderness and living off the land; with treasure hunting, abandoned copper mines, arrowheads and artifacts; and with the land of Geronimo and Billy The Kidd – an innate outsider who dips in and out of society at will.
Glide is very proud to premiere “Still Fighting” a catchy AF single that brings street cred along with simple pop pleasures into an anthem that spells victory and survival. Vigilantics might be the Southwest’s answer to Mos Def, yet he almost creates his own novel genre of street folk.
Still Fighting’ is song about my journey after leaving home at 14 – all the tours, scraps with the LAPD, companions that died, friends who went to prison, getting mixed up with motorcycle gangs, stolen cars, etc. The song
features Alisa Fedele of Heaps n Heaps/Stereo Match,” says Vigilantics.
