Orville Peck Reckons With The Past, Looks To The Future On New LP ‘Mule,’ Due In September

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Orville Peck is offering up a candid account of his journey through addiction and sobriety and how he rebuilt his life on his upcoming new album Mule, Sept. 18 via Warner Records.

Along with the album news, he’s releasing a pair of songs from the set: “Prologue (Eulogy Of A Man Turned Mule),” which features Emmylou Harris, Noah Cyrus, and Allison Russell; and the lead single “Too Little, Too Late,” a raucous, dirt-kicking country-pop rocker that feels like pure freedom.

On Mule, Peck turns his gaze inward, reckoning not only with his deeply personal past, but with the divide between the larger-than-life persona of Orville Peck and the man behind the mask. Peck’s fourth project unfolds as a chronological timeline of the year that reshaped his life, tracing the collapse of addiction, the pursuit of sobriety, and the slow, rocky process of rebuilding. Told with unflinching honesty, humor, and compassion, Mule finds Peck confronting love, loss, and identity through songs that move between classic country storytelling, bluegrass and expansive Americana.

“Prologue (Eulogy Of A Man Turned Mule)” is the scene-setting first track on Mule, finding three generations of female country icons harmonizing lyrics written and arranged by Peck. In the video, they don black veils and, in an eerie alternate space, nurse uniforms as they sing his would-be eulogy. It’s a stirring bleak ending that represents a beginning, as it turns out. “Too Little, Too Late” punctuates the redemptive back half of the set, and finds Peck dancing toward the finish line. Produced by Jay Joyce, the song embodies what it feels like to be finally secure with who you are and the feeling of having moved on when your ex comes crawling back.

Hot on the heels of his recent Grand Ole Opry debut, Peck has also announced his new fall “Man Turned Mule Tour.” The North American run will kick off on Oct. 28 in Sacramento and wrap up on Nov. 22. Nashville singer-songwriter Abbie Callahan joins Peck on the North American run, and $1 from every ticket sold on the “Man Turned Mule Tour” will be donated to The Trevor Project, supporting its mission to provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ young people.

Mule Track List:
1. “Prologue (Eulogy Of A Man Turned Mule)”
2. “Big Ol’ House”
3. “Already Gone”
4. “Rehab Blues”
5. “Ring The Bell”
6. “Blue Skies”
7. “The Fall”
8. “Cowboy Heart”
9. “The Breeze, The Grass, The Mourning Dove and Me”
10. “Run Out Of Road”
11. “Too Little, Too Late”
12. “War Of The Worlds”
13. “Mule”

Lorie Hollabaugh
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