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New Music

Album of the Week: 'The Fatalist' by Buffalo Nichols

By Kari Hedlund
Published October 16, 2023 at 5:30 AM CDT
'The Fatalist' by Buffalo Nichols, KAXE's featured album of the week.
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The Fatalist by Buffalo Nichols, KAXE's featured album of the week.

The Fatalist by Buffalo Nichols is KAXE's Album of the Week for the week of October 16th, 2023.

Carl 'Buffalo' Nichols sees things around him shifting, adapting, and progressing to these new world in 2023 . Everything but his genre of the blues, and he's out to change that.

The Milwaukee bluesman recorded, produced, mixed and played nearly all the instruments for his latest and second record, The Fatalist. In recent years, Nichols left Wisconsin for Austin, Texas. It was upon moving back home to Milwaukee where he found inspiration and his love for creating music again.

Carl 'Buffalo' Nichols writes songs that reflect our current times and issues, so it seems natural for him to want to bring the music into the contemporary as well. The list of instruments Nichols plays on the album is, well, surprising. Synth? Drum machines? On a folk blues record? Take a listen to 'Long Journey Home' and you'll hear how it takes a tradition of music and turns it on it's head slightly. Not a 180, but a shift that is noticeable and taps into the present world.

While The Fatalist comes in at a brief 8 songs, Nichols presents a full experience and listen.

Take a listen to our KAXE featured Album of the Week below.

Previous Albums of the Week

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Kari Hedlund
The Music Director since 2014, Kari (pronounced Car-ee) Hedlund oversees the music programming and content you hear each day on KAXE. She hosts Headwaters every Wednesday (9 a.m. and 10 p.m.) and is co-host to Heidi Holtan on the Thursday Morning Show.
See stories by Kari Hedlund
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