Kentucky singer/songwriter S.G. Goodman opens up about grief, legacy, and the traditional follow that impressed her breathtaking third album ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – a document of inheritance, survival, and the seek for which means. Talking with Atwood Journal, she displays on loss and duty whereas taking us track-by-track by means of her most weak and visionary work thus far.
Stream: “Fireplace Signal” – S.G. Goodman
With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my duty in passing down tales and beliefs.
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Okentucky’s personal S.G. Goodman doesn’t write albums a lot as she builds them from the marrow of lived expertise – fragile and unflinching, jagged and elegant.
Planting by the Indicators is her most cinematic, intimate, and devastatingly stunning document but: A wide ranging journey by means of grief and survival, inheritance and duty, and the everlasting tug-of-war between management and give up. Her third document aches in and out; Goodman’s lyrics are daring and unforgettable, her voice a vessel of uncooked humanity, wrapped in a heat, expansive soundscape that glows like firelight in an all-encompassing darkness.
Pushed by an unshakable ardour and solid within the fires of loss and grief, Planting by the Indicators is Goodman’s most weak and visionary album but – a resonant document of inheritance and survival, advised with piercing honesty and soul-stirring cinematic grace. It’s an album that burns gradual and regular till it consumes the whole lot in its path – together with our ears and our hearts alongside the way in which.
Launched June 20, 2025 by way of Slough Water Data / Thirty Tigers, Planting by the Indicators arrives because the extremely anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Enamel Marks and 2020’s Previous Time Feeling. These albums made Goodman certainly one of America’s most important singer/songwriters, incomes her essential acclaim, an NPR Tiny Desk efficiency, and the Americana Awards’ “Finest Rising Artist” prize. She’s toured relentlessly with the likes of Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket, and Margo Worth, whereas her instant-classic ballad “House and Time” has been lined by each Tyler Childers and Dev Hynes.
However the street took its toll. Between the lack of her beloved canine Howard and the tragic loss of life of her pal and mentor Mike Harmon, Goodman was pressured to reckon with mortality and reminiscence, absence and belonging.
“After writing and releasing my earlier albums, I felt an urgency to focus my consideration on a topic that once I’m gone, my nieces and nephew would be capable to hear our historical past,” she tells Atwood Journal. “With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my duty in passing down tales and beliefs.”
That urgency turned Planting by the Indicators, a document steeped within the historic follow of ‘planting by the indicators’ – the Appalachian people perception that the cycles of the moon ought to information life’s rhythms, from gardening and haircuts to weaning kids.
“Planting by the indicators is an historic follow, the place it’s believed that as a result of the moon impacts water, that in sure phases of the moon, there are extra suited circumstances to do issues than others,” Goodman explains. “As a result of all residing issues encompass water, it’s believed that every one residing issues are affected by the moon. I used to be weaned from my Mom by the indicators. I grew up listening to issues about reducing your hair in accordance with the moon and planting gardens below sure phases of the moon.”
For Goodman, this was each private and common. “‘Planting By The Indicators’ isn’t one thing that’s distinctive to my household alone, or to any group of individuals,” she provides.
“I can hint a few of the practices again to my pagan Celtic ancestors, in addition to discuss the way it was adopted to suit the beliefs of my conservative Christian ancestors. That’s my specific story, however all historic civilizations first seemed to nature to information them. It’s our collective heritage and belongs to every of us.”
As with each Goodman document, the making of Planting by the Indicators was as transformative because the songs themselves. “Individuals who document typically discuss ‘studio magic,’” she says. “One of many tracks I actually felt this expertise was whereas monitoring ‘Planting by the Indicators,’ my title observe. My preliminary sonic method to that track was not a stripped-down people track, however after monitoring it with the complete band, I knew instinctively that we would have liked to go one other course. I had blown my voice out the night time earlier than, so I wished to experiment with the association with out being the one singing the lyrics. I requested Matt Rowan to guide the track, and shortly after singing calmly alongside him to show the vocal melody, the studio magic was recognized. We have been presupposed to sing ‘Planting by the Indicators’ collectively. Matt has been certainly one of my longest music collaborators to-date, and he had agreed to affix me once more as co-producer for this album.”
That steadiness of collaboration and instinct threads by means of the document. The place her debut and sophomore information leaned closely on rootsy folk-rock grit, Goodman noticed this one as an opportunity to broaden the palette. “Sonically, I got here into the recording course of with the purpose of increasing my method with extra fashionable components than I utilized in earlier recordings. I like an natural method to recording, and selected a group of gamers and producers who I knew would be capable to actualize our imaginative and prescient.”
The opening observe, “Satellite tv for pc,” appears like a transmission from the in-between: A smoldering fever dream the place Goodman’s trembling voice hovers over sparse guitars and a gentle beat, whispering warnings into the static. “Look what it’s achieved to you,” she repeats, the road touchdown like each a lullaby and a lament. The track aches with disconnection and distortion, circling anxieties concerning the alerts we belief, the false lights we comply with, and the widening hole between humanity and the pure world.
If “Satellite tv for pc” appears to be like to the heavens, “Fireplace Signal” turns inward, naming the flame at Goodman’s core. Right here, she wrestles with exhaustion and endurance, questioning how a lot of the fireplace one can bear to hold whereas nonetheless insisting on the significance of protecting tales alive. Collectively, these early songs body the album as each cosmic and deeply private – tethered to the celebrities whereas rooted in Goodman’s Kentucky soil.
Properly, I’m simply making an attempt to construct life
Nailing down shingles in the proper signal
No curling within the daylight
Ah, just like the previous people stated they might
Some tried to make me out a liar
However I’m a dreamer with no solutions
Oh, who’s been residing just like the solar don’t shine
On the identical canine’s ass every single day
Oh, and who’ll put the fireplace out
Who’ll put the fireplace out
That duality is laid naked in “Snapping Turtle” and “Michael Instructed Me,” two of the album’s most piercing meditations. Within the former, Goodman transforms a childhood reminiscence into one thing mythic: A harrowing scene of children tormenting a turtle in a small Kentucky city, and her personal visceral act of stepping in. The brutality of the second turns into allegory, a meditation on cruelty, justice, and the impossibility of controlling how life unfolds. Over sparse, pulsing instrumentation, she sings with a voice that feels each fragile and unflinching, carrying grief and defiance in equal measure. “The opening scene of ‘Snapping Turtle’ nonetheless will get me,” Goodman admits. “Not all my songs are deeply private, however ‘Snapping Turtle’ is unquestionably certainly one of them that actually got here from my life, so these lyrics imply loads.”
Whenever you’re a farm child in a small city
You drive earlier than the authorized age
And I gained’t overlook that day
After I drove up on some low-down children
They have been all huddled round a poor snapping turtle
Taking turns with a stick
They have been beating the hell out of it
So I requested if I may take a lick
After I raised my hand,
I introduced down the wrath of God himself
Beat these children until they have been crying out for assist
I couldn’t assist myself
Then threw the turtle within the truck
Ooh, small city is the place my thoughts will get caught
– “Snapping Turtle,” S.G. Goodman
In “Michael Instructed Me,” agricultural knowledge turns into metaphor, with pruning reframed as the fragile, harmful work of tending to human relationships – reducing again in hopes of regrowth, or risking whole severance. Each songs ache with grief and the hope of reconciliation, proof of Goodman’s capability to carry devastation and tenderness in the identical hand. The title observe then gathers all of those strands – the celestial and the earthly, the inherited and the intimate – and distills them right into a hushed hymn. “Planting by the Indicators” bends historic lunar knowledge right into a love track, a reminder that timing and tenderness matter as a lot within the coronary heart as they do within the backyard.
The document’s journey culminates in “Heaven Tune,” a nine-minute odyssey that appears like each parable and pilgrimage. In its winding verses, Goodman units off on a street journey towards the afterlife, filling the automobile with characters like Love, Religion, Hope, Sin, and even Jesus himself – every passenger an emblem, every cease a reckoning. It’s sprawling, surreal, and darkly humorous, but beneath the allegory lies a uncooked meditation on grief and need, on what it means to go away behind the recognized in the hunt for one thing past.
As the ultimate notes fade, we’re left with a haunting chorus – “possibly if I see it, then I’ll need it” – a line that lingers like each query and confession. “Heaven Tune” doesn’t provide decision, nevertheless it does one thing rarer: it leaves us suspended in surprise, reminded that the act of looking is itself sacred.
I purchased an previous Malibu from the man subsequent door
Then I did, what many have achieved earlier than
I stuffed the tank up full, and took out for heaven
After I first minimize out, all I had was my canine
However I used to be advised he wouldn’t be right here for lengthy
Gave him a french fry and I requested him,
does he know the place we’re going?
He simply seemed out the window,
and thus far, no heaven was displaying
Then a stranger hopped in on the first purple gentle
She stated, my identify is Love and does that canine chew?
I advised her no however would she thoughts using shotgun?
Stated I by no means cared a lot for Love behind me or on the run
the primary hundred miles, the speaking was gentle
She stated, you possibly can’t get to heaven driving by means of the night time
And by the way in which I by no means requested your cause for going
If I’m heading there with you, i suppose I higher be realizing
And I stated
that possibly if I see it, then I’ll need it
Possibly if I see it then I’ll need it
Taken collectively, Planting by the Indicators isn’t just a set of cathartic songs, however a wide ranging physique of labor – intimate and immense, delicate and unflinching – that stands because the fullest realization of S.G. Goodman’s artistry thus far.
It succeeds as each private testimony and lasting legacy, remodeling her non-public historical past into one thing communal and resonant. Each observe feels certain by goal, every lyric sharpened by the burden of duty, but the music itself breathes with heat, humanity, and charm. In threading her personal story by means of historic knowledge and timeless truths, Goodman has created a deeply private album that additionally feels common: A soul-stirring reckoning with grief, inheritance, and survival, and a document destined to go away its mark on all who hear.
For her half, Goodman hopes Planting by the Indicators conjures up reflection in its viewers. “I’d wish to consider the hints I’ve included result in folks reflecting on their relationship with nature, with the celebrities and crops and water and planets round us,” she shares. “We’re nature’s kids, and we should always act accordingly.”
This album has additionally been about reclaiming presence. “Not like a few of my earlier albums, I’m truly making an attempt to be much less on-line and extra current in my life in the course of the roll-out. However it’s actually gratifying to see folks reply to it particularly stay. I performed two nights in my residence state of Kentucky proper after the album got here out, and that was a deeply particular expertise.”
And so Planting by the Indicators closes not simply as Goodman’s most bold and shifting document thus far, however as her most human – a reminder that life, just like the moon, strikes in cycles, and that our tales are price passing down.
Expertise the complete document by way of our under stream, and peek inside S.G. Goodman’s Planting by the Indicators with Atwood Journal as she goes track-by-track by means of the music and lyrics of her third studio album! In Goodman’s arms, the previous isn’t simply remembered – it’s replanted, in order that it might develop once more.
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Stream: ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – S.G. Goodman
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Satellite tv for pc
The entire premise behind the follow of Planting By The Indicators, is that we will look to nature to grasp when could be one of the best time to do one thing to get one of the best outcomes. I’m interested by how males are obstructing nature and its historic information, whereas the human situation stays the identical: that to outlive we should be in concord with nature and one another.
Fireplace Signal
My essence, “Who’ll put the fireplace out?” The one one who can put my fireplace out is myself. I consider that I’m naming what I really feel is my fireplace/essence all through the actions described within the track. After touring relentlessly from 2021-2023, I got here off the street questioning my goal and decisions. Individuals are fast to let you know that you’re not working laborious sufficient, however gradual in telling you that you’re working laborious sufficient. That appears to be as much as you, in addition to your “why.” Moreover, I’ve centered myself round the concept passing down tales connects us by means of generations. This notion was a driving pressure within the creation of this album as an entire.
I Can See The Satan
To me it is a track about how all through our lives we’re in a position to really feel the consequences of sunshine and what it brings in a bodily and religious means. I consider that “strolling within the sunshine” is an optimistic declaration of mindset and worldview that’s laborious to hold onto, however I consider that it’s symbolic of an innate need all of us share. I consider it’s a definite human expertise to seek for the great all through circumstantial hardship. The previous saying of once you see sunshine by means of the rain, implies that the satan is thrashing his spouse. The best way this previous saying has been described to me is seeing the great by means of the unhealthy.
Snapping Turtle
“Snapping Turtle” represents the expertise of wanting to regulate outcomes, and the laborious realization that in lots of instances that’s unattainable. As an alternative of getting management, we’re left merely a witness to the circumstances the life’s seasons provide in our personal lives and in these round us.
Michael Instructed Me
Whenever you prune a plant, the timing and approach can quantity to a more healthy future for the plant or its destruction. In keeping with the indicators, there are higher occasions to prune than others. On the subject of human relationships, reducing folks out of your life can lead to a relationship dying altogether, or house and time for it to develop a more healthy type. I describe a narrative the place I’ve skilled this in a relationship with a pal. The story doesn’t include whether or not the friendship got here again, however the expertise of realizing that it may.
Solitaire
The track “Solitaire” evokes the sport of life portrayed in two completely different card video games, with two completely different units of guidelines, however performed with the identical sort of playing cards. The river is present in Texas Maintain’em, and is the deciding think about a showdown in the course of the sport.
I’m In Love
On this track I exploit imagery and situations which might be easy and vivid regarding the human expertise of being in love. Not like most of the ideas present in “Planting By The Indicators” this track hinges on a common expertise, which is straightforward for everybody to consider and acknowledge in themself and others.
Planting By The Indicators
This track takes the bodily ideas of “Planting By The Indicators” and bends them right into a love track about making use of these to the emotional. A brief abstract could be that in love, we have now the bodily and emotional, and that even inside that actuality we’re striving for one of the best consequence.
Heaven Tune
Each human has inside them the need for what’s subsequent, get there, and infrequently in response to the truth of leaving what is thought. Throughout that pure quest, people have created ideas (Love, Religion, Sin, and so on.) that inform our journey, all to attempt to higher perceive what it’s we should always anticipate, even when within the second we can not understand what lies forward. The track ends with the chorus of “Possibly if I see it then I’ll need it.” However this comes after the narrative ends with the protagonist being requested, “What they discovered from Sin.” That is important as a result of Sin wouldn’t be considered a typical medium of ethical crucial, however isn’t lust as need a cause all of us transfer ahead a technique or one other?
On a private word, I consider one of many ideas not talked about on this track was that of grief. It wasn’t intentional to not point out it, however I consider that the whole lot that was talked about in “Heaven Tune” have been the elements essential to really feel and settle for grief. Residing is shedding and gaining alongside the way in which, and in case you are doing it proper, grief will probably be your closest passenger and present.
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