Parker Millsap

WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU

It’s been a time of intense, worldwide change over the past few years … or maybe it all depends on scale. Zooming out to a geological timeline, maybe not much has changed at all. On his sixth album Wilderness Within You, acclaimed singer/songwriter Parker Millsap explores this flux between the here and now and the big BIG picture, while reckoning with questions about humanity’s place on this planet. The result is a study in contrasts: the personal versus the cosmic, sparse acoustic compositions sitting next to lush psychedelic improvisations. Above all, Wilderness Within You is an understanding of darkness while expressing an abundance of gratitude for life itself.

Born and raised in Purcell, OK, a tiny town with a huge sky, Millsap learned early on how to express gratitude through song while playing gospel in the church band. At the same time, he absorbed the honest lyrics of Townes Van Zandt, Mississippi John Hurt’s fingerpicking, and classic albums like Graceland and Rumors. Millsap’s early career recordings like the critically lauded Parker Millsap (2014) and The Very Last Day (2016) displayed these influences through character-driven storytelling and minimalist instrumentation. Be Here Instead, Millsap’s 2021 release produced by John Agnello, hinted at the wildness to come while exploring newer, more personal songwriting styles. Wilderness Within You is a natural step in Parker's evolution which interweaves threads of his musical past and influences to gorgeous effect.

The 13-track Wilderness Within You is a slow-burn crescendo, opening with the simple but powerful “Greetings and Thanks,” which puts to music “The Thanksgiving Address” of the indigenous peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. All proceeds from the song will be donated to the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force.

“The address is traditionally known as ‘The Words that Come Before All Else.’ So it only felt right to start the record with this song,” Millsap says. “The way I understand it, it’s essentially an offering of gratitude to the earth and all its beings. Imagine a world where that mindset is our central guidepost. When I read about this in Robin Wall-Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, it made an incredibly positive impact on me. I wanted to share that impact with others.”

Wilderness Within You was produced with new collaborator Ryan McFadden and features a backing band of musicians whom Millsap had largely never met or played with until they began rolling tape. Ross McReynolds on drums, Calvin Knowles on bass, Juan Solorzano and Mark Sloan on guitar & pedal steel, Ryan Connors and Will Honaker on keys, Jake Botts on saxophone, and Daniel Foulks on fiddle. In most cases, these musicians didn’t hear the song they were about to track until minutes before recording began. Millsap also found himself experimenting with field recording  and tape loop-driven soundscapes in a way never before heard on his recordings, making the album a revelation both for the listener and the artist. Millsap describes this recording method in a way that echoes the album name and title track – wild and natural, yet personal.

In a broader sense, Wilderness Within You poses many weighty questions without easy answers. “A lot of the songs are based on questions I have about the way our systems work, who they benefit and why, in a way I don’t think I questioned before,” says Millsap. “On the album, I’m being really honest about what’s important to me and what has been on my mind over the past few years. The price of progress. The interconnectedness of life. Awe. Gratitude. Indigenous wisdom. You know... no biggie.”

Long-time fans will recognize the album’s foundations – acoustic instrumentation and solid songwriting centered around Millsap’s show-stopping voice. They’ll also spot the evolution towards more experimentation and sampling from other musical cultures. Beyond the opening “Greetings and Thanks,” the album continues on with a series of auditory landscapes and thoughtful insights including, “Running on Time” which is a calming meditation on the rhythms of life. The track contrasts a sweet message about patience with distorted electronic harmonies. It’ll remind you that being a little late for work one day is probably okay in the grand scheme of the universe.

The second half of Wilderness turns darker and moodier with the industrial, buzz-saw “Half a World Away,” which finds Millsap questioning “who murders for my meat? who gets it here from there?” Before it was recorded, the song went through 10 different versions, “I was trying to make it dense and complex and organic-sounding, but it’s about the machinery of industrialism essentially, so I knew it should sound more like that.” McFadden had earlier introduced Millsap to the pioneering gritty synth-rock of Suicide, and suddenly the notion of trying “Half a World Away” in that style unlocked the final version. “We’d been working at it for months, and after I had the idea to make it into a Suicide song, we had it down in 30 minutes. Structurally and melodically, the chord progression stayed the same. But the vibe, the aesthetic and the instrumentation completely shifted.”

At the other end of the sonic spectrum is the beautiful, roots-y title track; a duet with the

legendary Gillian Welch. “It was such a dream come true to work with Gillian on this song,” Millsap said. “Like a lot of the record, we recorded it live with no headphones and we nailed it in just a few takes. The whole time we talked about wildflowers and trees, it was wonderful.” The track illustrates Millsap’s understanding of nature as something that humans are not separate from – that life is stunningly beautiful most of the time, but does contain streaks of darkness that are just as natural: “There’s a field that’s full of violets, there’s a bruise that’s purple brown, there’s a little bit of violence, and a lot of fertile ground.”

These songs, and all that became Wilderness Within You, were painstakingly selected from a large collection of Millsap’s writings. Producer McFadden and Millsap spent months in McFadden’s home studio sorting through and weighing potential songs, and exploring the musical possibilities that matched each one. “Ryan really took the time to comb through a mountain of material with me, and he asked me hard questions about the songs that I hadn’t yet asked myself. He’s infectiously curious. That helped us create a clarity of purpose. So this approach gave us confidence that the melodies and lyrics were solid enough to handle sonic exploration. We had a blast,” Millsap said. 

Wilderness Within You was recorded at Hartland Studio – only blocks away from Millsap’s home in Nashville, Tennessee, close enough for him to commute to work every day via bike for the recording. (He was grateful to avoid the extra fossil fuel use of driving.)

While Millsap can feel deeply discouraged by the way things are going wrong in the world, especially with the climate crisis, Wilderness Within You is threaded with hope and thankfulness for all we do have. This idea is beautifully etched on “Magic,” an anthem about the power of paying attention – a torch song perfect for listeners to join in and belt along to.

“I really do want people to feel the magic,” Millsap said, echoing lyrics from the song. “It’s out there.”