After so many years of rambling and roaming, domesticity suits Will Oldham well. He got married in the late 2010s, became a father, and settled into home life in Louisville, all of which he commemorated on 2019’s eclectic I Made a Place. That album arrived six years after his last collection of new songs—an eternity for the usually prolific artist—and in retrospect it sounds like a comeback after a handful of odds-and-ends collaborations, covers projects, and conceptual experiments. His new songs were witty and playful, full of shoutouts to Aquaman and The Little Mermaid and spooning with his lady all night, but he sang them with both gratitude and gravity, as though having so much to be thankful for meant having just as much to lose. His subsequent records revealed an artist rejuvenated, with a new subject and sensibility to boost his collaborations with old friends and his follow-up record with a crew of local music educators. He made a place—a family, a community—and prospered there.

Superficially, The Purple Bird leaves that place. Oldham traipsed south down I-65 to Nashville, where he worked with an outside producer for only the second time in his career. He met David “Ferg” Ferguson 25 years ago when Oldham sang on Johnny Cash’s cover of “I See a Darkness”; Ferg engineered those sessions, and has since helmed albums for Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, and John Prine. Over the years he and Oldham have grown closer as friends, to the extent that Ferg played at Oldham’s wedding. It seems inevitable, in retrospect, that they would make a record together, but it wasn’t inevitable that they would make such a fine one, Oldham’s best and most focused in some time.

Before they even hit record, Ferg told Oldham he didn’t want to make a country album. Instead, he thought they should just make a Bonnie “Prince” Billy album. Thankfully, they weren’t entirely successful. The Purple Bird is a Bonnie “Prince” Billy country record. Oldham gave himself over fully to the Nashville experience, participating in a series of casual songwriting sessions with various local legends and playing with a wrecking crew of musicians who are deft enough to sound like they’ve been backing him on stages all over creation. There’s a freewheeling spirit to the music they created together, a punchy camaraderie that connects these disparate songs from the agitpolka of “Guns Are for Cowards” to the Celtic dreamfolk of “Downstream,” and from the rambunctious ramble of “Turned to Dust (Rolling On)” to the despairing chorus of “Boise, Idaho” (which contains one of Oldham’s loveliest and most forlorn melodies).

“Tonight With the Dogs I’m Sleeping” may have the archaic phrasing common in Oldham’s lyrics and song titles, but it’s an old-school country lament, a carouser’s complaint about the missus, with a barroom sing-along and the self-deprecating wordplay of Jerry Reed and Bobby Bare: “Sitting at the bar with a drink or two, telephone rings and it’s you-know-who,” he sings. “You know who’s a-gonna get his ass chewed tonight.” Oldham co-writes and sings with a wry sense of humor, as though he’s both charmed and chagrined to discover that his life fits the contours of a country song. Of course, his brand of country has nothing in common with folks like Jelly Roll or Post Malone. He’s closer to folks like Roger Miller, Tom T. Hall, and Don Williams. You can imagine Cash himself lending his rich voice to “Turned to Dust (Rolling On)” or including “Is My Living in Vain?” on one of his later American Recordings albums.

Oldham has always been an immensely intentional and engaged singer, but on The Purple Bird he pushes himself to live up to such idols, and to match the musicians backing him. His vocals have a subtly quivering intensity on “London May,” as though he’s recoiling from some horror, and that makes the chorus sound all the more cathartic. Similarly, he conveys wonder and amazement on the fearful ecological warning “Downstream,” although it may be less at the fragility of nature and more at the majestic twang of duet partner John Anderson. For possibly the first time in his catalog, Oldham sounds starstruck. He seems to be re-evaluating how to use his voice, which is a remarkable thing for an artist 30 years deep into a twisting and singular career.

If The Purple Bird sounds like a companion to his previous two studio albums, it’s because they’re all animated by a similar passion for life. Oldham is exhorting his listener to live ardently, to see a lightness rather than a darkness. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” he declares on “The Water’s Fine,” but with less burden than he would have sung it 15 or 20 years ago. There’s an unguarded quality to his performances, even when he ponders impossible questions about hardship and suffering on “Is My Living in Vain?” The song leaves the questions unanswered, but Oldham follows it up with “Our Home,” which provides an ecstatic affirmation. Featuring veteran songwriter and mandolin ace Tim O’Brien, it defines home—one of country music’s most enduring topics, and a new fascination for Oldham—in terms of community. “When the hard times are coming to push you down low, you’re only as good as the people you know.” It’s a rousing anthem of contentment and appreciation, an epiphany that sounds like it’s been years in the making.