New Orleans artist Ric Robertson has just released the new music video for his song “Anna Rose,” from his acclaimed 2021 album, Carolina Child, on Free Dirt Records (NPR praised his “poetic storytelling”). The video is the result of Ric’s friendship with legendary glass artists Clinton Roman and Arik Krunk.

Hearing Ric Robertson for the first time, you’ll be forgiven if John Prine is the first name that comes to mind. Robertson’s voice has the same soft Southern burr as Prine’s, the same Zen acceptance of humanity’s failings, and, most importantly, the same sense of playfulness in the music. There’s a bit of Willie Nelson in there too, not just from all the smoke in the air, but from the colliding elements of jazz, funk, and country. Robertson’s an American original, pulling influences from the greats that came before, but wholly responsible for creating his own creative universe.

Russia and China are interfering with our election. The GOP campaign is engaging in frivolous lawsuits to stifle negative ads and there is now proof they are responsible for rallying support around a deranged, (as if the current one wasn’t damaged enough) third-party candidate. I’m enraged by all this revolting behavior. Yet, what makes me the most irate is the mucking about in the mechanism needed for us to vote safely since the pandemic is out of freaking, control. (I whole-heartily acknowledge The United States Post Office isn’t a sexy nor exciting topic.

Ric Robertson’s Strange World EP drips with syrupy trance-funk like an intergalactic spacecraft rising from swampy waters at the far edges of the galaxy, crash-landing in the middle of Frenchmen Street. Where his 2018 full-length debut The Fool, The Friend channeled the lovesick wryness of John Prine, Randy Newman, and Paul Simon, Strange World leans into the rhythmic enchantment of George Clinton, Sly Stone, and Dr. John.