Medium Build’s Church of Dirt
There’s a place in Utah called The Church of Dirt. It is what it sounds like–an altar made of sticks, with some pews on top of a mountain. A recent public radio story said it was “loved to death.” For many Utahns it was a spiritual place. For me it was sacred. The informality of its communal history was sweetly amusing and the expanse of mountains was awe striking. Before it died, it gave me the sense of humility and history that religion cannot always provide.
Though Chicago’s Lincoln Hall is far from Utah, the crowded midwestern venue felt like an extension of the Utah landmark. When Medium Build played on Friday night, the audience displayed a zeal for the band like some do for an unconfirmed deity. I was wholly unfamiliar with the band, and what I experienced turned out to be a sort of secular baptism in country music and dirt bag culture.
Before Medium Build, the show opened with Clover County, who appeared center stage, alone perched on a stool. As a recent college graduate with a hearty amount of monthly listeners, she set a tone for the night by paying homage to her Georgian roots. Her humor worked to puncture any opening awkwardness, while her warm and meandering vocals enveloped the audience in comfort and ease. She describes herself as “boot gazey” – the ideal combination of ethereal and country, with a fuzzy vocal reverb that reminds me of that sweet place we fall into just between sleep and wake.
Seeing a burgeoning female solo artist like Clover County open for a rising star like Medium Build felt like an intentional act. These kinds of choices do not go unnoticed in an industry where women struggle to get representation on bills. Her song “Outlaw” has been on repeat for the last day and a half.
When Nick Carpenter (he/ they) took the stage, the lead singer of Medium Build, his eclectic nature was immediately apparent. He wears one dangling earring, and a bleached extreme mullet that borders on a new kind of rat tail. (look this up). His stage matches his eccentric country-punkness, with teddy bears hanging from ropes, and a vintage looking carpet pinned behind him. It was a bizarre but comforting invitation to be part of his decaying, imaginative world.
His style was a poignant reflection of his life, a scattered canvas of experimentation and comfort. His nomadic lifestyle is an emulation of Christopher McCandless. He left home at 18 for the distant expanse of Alaska. Since then, he’s been scraping across the country, touring and building his artistry.
His aura and his music reflects a deep relationship with rural America and the specific harshness of Alaska. It appears that Carpenter has a genuine connection with the less seen, less appreciated sides of American life, drawing attention to these spaces through his thematic overtones.
His latest album, Country, (April, 2024) puts an obvious name to this. It’s a homely, nearly folkish, record. It’s a record I would play on a thousand mile road trip, if I wanted to think about both my childhood and all my past relationships. It’s somehow deeply personal and universal.
That universal sound was definitely felt among the crowd at Lincoln Hall. The audience recited his songs, sometimes before he could, a persistent engagement that is a hallmark of his shows. By asking questions, telling stories and creating a personal bond with his audience, he was a performer masquerading as a friend, though maybe that’s what the best artists do. He takes breaks in his show to talk about life, death, and love; a sermon for his audience. For his die hard fans, his music and even his presence is a religious experience, and for good reason.
Carpenter grew up in the church, and as many reformed religious people know, there is a reckoning that happens in the aftermath. Let down by the institutions that raised us, we’re forced to search for new worlds that can answer for the void we have created. It’s a change in belief systems, a reverse baptism. Evidence of a spiritual struggle is omnipotent in his work, there’s an angst and an eternal profession that comes through in his vocal strength and lyricism.
In his song “Wild” he writes: “As a kid they tossed me round church and round school/I learned that godliness was just to be used/ Over and over again” the chorus answers “I needed someone to build something with/ I needed someone to lean up against/I needed someone to tell me no/ I needed someone to let me go wild” It’s clear he’s searching for a greater authority, only to find it in the analysis of himself.
As someone that evokes such spirituality, it appears that he takes this role seriously, and not in a way that exploits the power dynamic between fans and artists, but in a way that understands and responsibly wields it.
As a return of favor to his loyal fans, he sang with unyielding passion–– employing an urgency that oscillates between gentle and guttural. He achieved notes that were out of body, straining to hit them by making a face that I can only describe as poppeye-cartoon-sailorish. In those visceral moments, he reminded me of Adrienne Lenker, casting a hex onto his audience as she is known to do.
His lyrics deserve recognition outside of their musical constraints. He finds a place between humor, gratitude, and deep melancholy. My favorite song off his new Album, “In My Room” is an ode to boyhood. He writes, “In my room, I am sacred, I am safe, I am free, In my room, I get to dream up who I really wanna be In my room there’s a kid who tried on all his brother’s clothes who hates the way he looks and is bad at saying no.” It’s nostalgic and vulnerable in the universal mode that he has mastered. (This is also the song that clocked him as a Taurus)
His music bears a passing likeness to Noah Kahan, but Medium Build is the musical equivalent of Kahan’s weirder, moodier cousin. They share an emotional openness and a passion that takes shape through the intertwining of country, indie, and folk influences. In reality, his musical siblings are closer to Runnner or older country musicians from before my time.
Ultimately, the show made me feel a kind of human warmth and optimism that I didn’t know I was missing. I left feeling inspired and connected. The concert was my own Church of Dirt, reincarnated after its loving death.
