For his 2018 debut, the poignant , songwriter/composer delivered a song cycle inspired by going phone-free on a 13-day, nearly 9,000-mile train trip immediately following the 2016 U.S. presidential election -- the idea being to interact with his fellow countrymen in fully human form. His less-social label follow-up, , is related conceptually in that it collects songs written during a self-imposed year with no Internet (late 2019 to October 2020). Little did he know that the COVID-19 pandemic would proliferate in the meantime, so when it came time to record selections culled from dozens of resulting songs, he re-embraced the technology in order to include contributions from around a dozen musician friends. One of the most personnel-heavy tracks on an intimate set that affects with its detailing is "To Be American," a song that remembers the misguided innocence of youth "Before the trench coats and the roped off rooms/The shell-shocked mothers and the TV crews." The track opens with ' (mandolin) and (double bass) alongside (violin) on slightly unsettling but grooving plucked strings before joins in with his typically lyrical, tonality-shifting vocals and piano. The song also features on likewise subtly off-balance percussion, and on ghostly backing vocals behind condemning lyrics like "Drain everything, land of the plenty." Another of the more collaborative tracks, the trippier "The Basement Engineer," highlights 's piano and warped synths while adding playful accompaniment by on flute and piccolo as well as avant-folkies and on choral-like backing vocals. 's contributes harmony vocals to another plugged-in track, the pandemic-acknowledging "Linda & Stuart" ("The deliverymen, in their light blue surgical masks/Knock twice, leave groceries double-bagged at the door"). Elsewhere, tracks like "We Are the Saints" and "The Hazelnut Tree" are wistful, near-solo piano songs with added touches like the quietly howling noise and siren-like effects of the latter (a combination of 's synths and violin by ). closes on the most personal song of them all, "Sit Shiva," which mourns the loss of 's grandmother with a light, bittersweet touch. Another piano-synth crossover entry, it features on guitars and vocal accompaniment by . Graceful and moving throughout, the album's ten tracks are far from elaborate, drifting by in less than 30 minutes like fleeting thoughts while adding another piece of cultural Americana to 's discography, despite its individualistic origins. ~ Marcy Donelson