J. Tillman at Blue Lamp: He stands alone

Josh Tillman’s music has been compared to that of the late Nick Drake plenty of times. But, as he’s a fan of Drake’s, hopefully he hasn’t minded too much. Like the “Pink Moon” songster, the Seattle-based Tillman plays mellow acoustic folk music that is steeped in melancholy, but with an earthy and bluesy soulfulness. His voice is his strongest instrument, and he constructs simple arrangements of guitar, piano, dulcimer, recorder, banjo—all played by himself—around brooding yet mesmerizing melodies. Although he’s been recording material since 2004 under the moniker J. Tillman, he has remained relatively unknown—until he became a Fox. In 2008, he joined the Fleet Foxes as the full-time percussionist and harmonizer. Fleet devotees have been able to get an earful of Tillman’s solo work when he opened for the Foxes on a recent tour, and now he’s headlining his own for the release of his sixth album, Year in the Kingdom, out on Western Vinyl on September 8. See how he sounds alone.