The Deslondes’ Riley Downing Announces Oh Boy Records Debut Album ‘Landfill Poetry’ & Shares Rollicking Title Track

The Deslondes' Riley Downing recently signed to Oh Boy Records, the imprint co-founded by the late John Prine. Streaming below is his first single on the label, “Landfill Poetry,” the title track off Downing’s forthcoming album, which is due out on August 28 via Oh Boy.

Just as esteemed singer-songwriter John Prine came across ideas for his songs as a mailman in Chicago, Downing’s day job traced a similar path as a garbage man in Missouri. Both jobs offer glimpses inside people’s personal lives with Riley finding inspiration to build “three-minute worlds out of his once-dusty memories, digging out one tune at a time and saving them from being lost in the trash pile,” as per a press release.

Downing crafted the Landfill Poetry tunes at his grandparents’ house in between road stints with The Deslondes. The guitarist and singer-songwriter began laying down sketches on an eight track recorder.

“I would just end up with a bunch of these little, weird demos where you don’t think about it too much but record whatever you’re thinking,” he recalled. “I just let it happen.”

Downing saw these vignettes through the lens of a garbage man, knowing that not all discarded things are trash.

“‘Landfill Poetry’ is a song that takes me back to my days shortly before I devoted the majority of my life to music. It is also a term that I feel represents this album as a whole. A good handful of these songs or ideas I had kept in my bindle sack of a brain, or moved from one pile to another, but never burying too far down to be lost forever. A true junk man or woman knows the feeling of never really wanting to throw anything away. Everything has a purpose or will even if not at that specific moment you discovered it. In the eye of the beholder, everything has potential to become the perfect part or piece to be used at some point, and for what exactly might take time to present itself, but should never be tossed out forever. Some artists have studios or little areas, or workshops where they spread out their materials or tools and get to work. My medium mostly involves words and melodies and just retaining memories for the most part. Luckily, they don’t take up much physical space or burn holes in the ozone layer. Though misplaced sometimes but never forgotten, most of what I write or draw inspiration from is stored upstairs in my head. Which can be the funnest thing or the most frustrating thing—to create something from nothing—but then again somebody’s nothing is somebody’s something. So you have it: ‘Landfill Poetry’—this song, album title, and album—is a culmination of everything that is my life or things I picked from my own personal mental landfill. This song in particular takes me back to my days as a trash man, when a much younger healthier me was hopping on and off a trash truck in rural Missouri. Going down one street and next, zig zagging through small towns, and over and under the rolling hills to anyone that needed us to stop by. I often travel and take myself back to places I have been in life but haven’t visited in a while and this memory is just one of many places we will go throughout the entirety of this album.”

Preview Landfill Poetry with the official music video for the title track, premiering today exclusively on JamBase, below: