Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Slottsskogen Friday August 14th
Few artists see the world like Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and though singularity is a word often thrown around lightly in music writing, in his case it almost feels insufficient. Too neat a label for something so unruly and alive. For more than three decades, Will Oldham has moved through his many incarnations with a gaze that feels both ancient and strangely present, documenting the fragile negotiations between love and ruin, faith and doubt, tenderness and decay. The world of Bonnie “Prince” Billy is at once gothic and pastoral, literary yet instinctive, sentimental without ever losing its edge. It can be hopeful and hopeless in the same breath, occasionally bizarre, often disarmingly plainspoken. But more than anything, it is deeply human. Flesh and blood. His songs are populated by saints and sinners, drifters and lovers, people caught somewhere between transcendence and the everyday. And then there is the voice: unmistakable, wavering yet resolute, carrying a profound intimacy that feels less performed than confessed. After a period marked by longer intervals between releases, the pace has quickened. Following 2025’s “The Purple Bird”, Oldham’s own take on a country record, he now returns with “We Are Together Again.” This summer, Bonnie “Prince” Billy brings his truly singular world to Way Out West.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy will perform in Slottsskogen on Friday August 14th.