James Houlahan is a self-proclaimed late bloomer. “While I started playing guitar at age 13, I wasn’t in a band until I was 25, and I recorded my first album at age 31. That said, I think any artist needs to cast a wide net out into the world, exploring all kinds of artistic media and all kinds of experience. To continually expand one’s individual vocabulary for expression, so that we can try to put words and sounds to things that seem to defy meaning.”
Based in Los Angeles, Houlahan has been active on the local music scene since arriving from Boston in 2012. His music has found its way into commercials, television and movies such as “Little Pink House,” starring Catherine Keener. His records have been lauded by critics with Glide Magazine writing that he is “near the top of must-see and hear indie singer-songwriters.”
Until the pandemic broke in 2020, he was busy touring, playing stages throughout much of the American West and Europe. Having released two new albums over the past couple of years, he returns to touring with a slew of new songs. Beyond the Borders, due out November 18th, takes inspiration from folklore, poetry (setting a W.H. Auden poem to music), films, Neil Young, and Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.
Beyond the Borders straddles both the personal and the universal while offering a message of hope for a brighter future. And if it makes you dance, too—well, that’s just gravy.
Today Glide is offering an exclusive premiere of the standout track “Back to the Start.” The song finds Houlahan tapping into his inner troubadour as he unleashes an upbeat country tune that layers in plenty of pedal steel guitar and dreamy harmonies. His vocal delivery is straightforward and lyrics are vivid in the literary sense, and the upbeat tempo properly serves the theme of staying hopeful. Houlahan accomplishes the rare feat of conveying pain, joy and wisdom in his music while also letting his band have some fun to make for a delightful country-rock composition.
Houlahan describes the inspiration behind the song:
“The necessity of perseverance when all seems lost. An ending turned into another beginning. The feeling of needing to turn inward, to focus on what’s directly in front of you, directly within you. The head spins with all of the bad news and misfortune blaring in the headlines. The need for respite. A silence that must bear fruit in a dark forest. And even if the coast is now clear, seeds of sorrow will someday grow and bloom into so much grief and loss. Inevitable passage. How to joyfully participate in these sorrows of existence? It seems impossible, and yet beauty remains. Beauty can remain, that is. When all else is stripped away. Beauty remains.”
LISTEN:
