"Bed Of Violets" is the newest single from Foot Ox, taking us on an emotional rollercoaster through the dark and light of fighting internal darkness. It feels big and personal, entirely the work of its maker, Teague Cullen, the man behind the decades-spanning experimental folk project. In essence, you are living music, and it opens up an unseen path for anyone remotely connected to the vile things that day hides under our noses, yet a sliver of light remains.
"Bed Of Violets" surrounds you in orchestration so lush, where strings snake through like flickers of fireflies from within a storm. The piece feels full, striking, and somber, imbuing the song's torment with an almost religious intensity. When Cullen decided to enlist Sean Bonnette of AJJ to accompany him on this song, it seemed only natural. It is a testament to Bonnette's clever gift of toeing the line between somber, gritty undercurrents and soft, soothing choruses, which provides an outlet in this sanctuary where shame and heartache can breathe unabashedly.
The lyrics also walk a tightrope, boldly facing the darkness without offering any pat responses. And it's where the emotional breakthrough comes out, in the music, with all of these swelling strings and every harmony. There was an unspoken beauty in this distinction, even in the bleakest of times, there is a world out there where nothing's certain but the certainty of interest that stirs with it.
Foot Ox has always been a unique blend of folk, punk, country, and experimental rock, all on their sort of shelf. Cullen's work since 2007 has featured a kind of honesty and storytelling that reads like surrealism within the facets surrounding Cullen. In this sense, Foot Ox has established itself as an outlier among its indie scene contemporaries stemming from the Phoenix-Tempe DIY circuit, which includes AJJ and Stephen Steinbrink.