Buffalo Nichols breathes new life into the blues and announces a string of Spanish dates

Buffalo Nichols released The Fatalist, his evocative and mesmerizing sophomore album, via Fat Possum. On the album Buffalo Nichols breathes new life into the blues.

“Those ’70s and ’80s blues men took on these Black stereotypes and made this new stereotype of bad, ‘your uncle’s band in a garage’ blues music,” Carl “Buffalo” Nichols told David Browne in a 2022 Rolling Stone Story. “It’s already been so far removed from anything recognizable from what Black people have ever done. And then you have this really difficult question of, ‘How do I fit in — or do you even want to fit in?’”

On The Fatalist, the blues guitarist and songwriter’s second record as Buffalo Nichols, he seems to find the answer. By mixing synth ambience and hip-hop production with rattling acoustic guitar and his tectonic rumble of a voice, Nichols forgets about fitting in. Rather, he made a blues record for the world he lives in. If that world has white garage-blues uncles in it, they’re not gatekeepers. Plumbing depths deeper and darker on his sophomore effort, Buffalo Nichols explores the blues with cadences that are as dicey in their experiments as they are rooted in tradition. 

The album favors a backporch-styled plucking that upturns the dark soul as if it were the pitch-black of chernozem. This newest batch, eight songs in all, finds him in weary form, his now choked and haunted croon skimming each number like a restless, vengeful ghost.

After a short run early 2024, Buffalo Nichols will be back for a string of Spanish shows in January:

22/01: Barcelona, ESP - Razzmatazz 3
23/01: Valencia, ESP - Loco Club
24/01: Madrid, ESP - El Sótano
25/01: Zaragoza, ESP - La Lata de Bombillas
26/01: San Sebastián, ESP - Dabadaba