Your Source for NPR News & Music
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Viking's Choice: Chris Weisman, 'Backpack People'

Chris Weisman.
Courtesy of the artist
Chris Weisman.

Chris Weisman's songs shouldn't work. Or, at the very least, the massive volume and musical limits the Battleboro, Vt., singer places on his songs shouldn't work. Stretching his output over cassettes, split releases, CDs with long track lists and even an 88-song YouTube album, Weisman must have hundreds of two-minute songs — not to mention many more unrecorded — each committed to the sparest instrumentation and a curious sense of melody.

This one, "Backpack People" (from The Holy Life That's Coming), is an acoustic song whose melancholy melody twists the simplest observations ever so slightly, just enough to make listeners take a step back and wonder what Weisman sees and hears.

The Holy Life That's Coming comes out Feb. 26 on NNA Tapes.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Listen to the Viking's Choice playlist, subscribe to the newsletter.
Related Stories