Carrboro’s Sleepy Cat Records—the home of Libby Rodenbough and Blue Cactus—favors a warm, relaxed vein of indie Americana that is typified by T. Gold, the group of the label’s founders, Saman Khoujinian and Gabe Anderson.
They’ve been putting their time in quarantine to good use by creating an equally warm and relaxed new single and video, “You’re Not Gonna Live Forever,” which we’re premiering today ahead of its official release tomorrow.
Khoujinian, whose gentle acoustic guitar and unruffled voice anchor the ensemble tune, calls the song “a rumination on the difficulty of both accepting and giving support in a challenging moment.” Recorded to four-track cassette in a lake-house retreat, the song’s downcast title is offset by the good-times-with-friends video by Benjamin Attias.
The ensemble—which also includes Alex Bingham’s bass, Ryan Johnson’s slide guitar, Joe MacPhail’s keys, Danny Abrams’s clarinet, Chessa Rich’s backup vocals, and Chris Frisina on the inimitable drone-and-percussion device called the Morfbeats Marvin—basks in camaraderie and intimate room tone, and the prevailing mood is of realistic hope: “Your old life’s not coming back,” Khoujinian sings. “Maybe a new one could.”
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