Biography
Joseph D’Agostino, who once fronted the noted indie unit Cymbals Eat Guitars, directs the forceful indie rock outfit Empty Country. Its dense layers of guitars and keyboards evoke the tangled and often anguished circumstances of the figures populating its songs. Because D’Agostino records most parts alone in the studio and adds only a rhythm section when needed, the project’s seamless marriage of melody and abrasion stands out even more sharply. The self-titled 2020 debut introduced the venture and signaled D’Agostino’s turn as a lyricist toward fictional character studies, while the harder, weightier, and more emotionally raw Empty Country II followed in 2023.
After nearly ten years of touring and recording, D’Agostino chose in late 2017 to disband Cymbals Eat Guitars, convinced the group had reached the end of its creative arc. The final show took place that December at New York’s Bowery Ballroom; the split occurred without any public statement, leaving some listeners uncertain whether another album might still appear. Instead, D’Agostino returned to his Philadelphia home and began shaping a new project whose sweeping melodies and thick arrangements would support impressionistic portraits of people confronting various forms of adversity. Although he originally conceived the work as a solo effort, he decided to release it under the name Empty Country, borrowed from a Cymbals Eat Guitars song. D’Agostino sang lead, played guitar and keyboards, and co-produced the sessions with Swearin’ member Kyle Gilbride. Additional contributors included former Cymbals Eat Guitars drummer Charlotte Anne Dole, her brother Patrick Dole on bass, Zena Kay of Angel Olsen on guitar and pedal steel, and Rachel Browne—D’Agostino’s wife and Field Mouse’s lead singer—who supplied backing vocals as well as the cover photography and design.
Get Better Records released Empty Country in 2020 to strong critical response, although a planned tour was canceled when the COVID-19 pandemic suspended live music. Empty Country finally performed live for the first time in May 2022 at a Brooklyn concert, with D’Agostino backed by a seven-piece band. By then he and Browne had moved to a small New England town, where the conservative outlook of some neighbors prompted him to consider America’s widening cultural divisions—an experience that fed the songs on Empty Country II. That album was recorded during two weeks at the Fidelitorium, the Kernersville, North Carolina studio owned by ex-R.E.M. producer and power-pop figure Mitch Easter, who added percussion to one track. John Agnello engineered and co-produced, with D’Agostino again joined by Charlotte Anne Dole, Patrick Dole, and Rachel Browne.
After nearly ten years of touring and recording, D’Agostino chose in late 2017 to disband Cymbals Eat Guitars, convinced the group had reached the end of its creative arc. The final show took place that December at New York’s Bowery Ballroom; the split occurred without any public statement, leaving some listeners uncertain whether another album might still appear. Instead, D’Agostino returned to his Philadelphia home and began shaping a new project whose sweeping melodies and thick arrangements would support impressionistic portraits of people confronting various forms of adversity. Although he originally conceived the work as a solo effort, he decided to release it under the name Empty Country, borrowed from a Cymbals Eat Guitars song. D’Agostino sang lead, played guitar and keyboards, and co-produced the sessions with Swearin’ member Kyle Gilbride. Additional contributors included former Cymbals Eat Guitars drummer Charlotte Anne Dole, her brother Patrick Dole on bass, Zena Kay of Angel Olsen on guitar and pedal steel, and Rachel Browne—D’Agostino’s wife and Field Mouse’s lead singer—who supplied backing vocals as well as the cover photography and design.
Get Better Records released Empty Country in 2020 to strong critical response, although a planned tour was canceled when the COVID-19 pandemic suspended live music. Empty Country finally performed live for the first time in May 2022 at a Brooklyn concert, with D’Agostino backed by a seven-piece band. By then he and Browne had moved to a small New England town, where the conservative outlook of some neighbors prompted him to consider America’s widening cultural divisions—an experience that fed the songs on Empty Country II. That album was recorded during two weeks at the Fidelitorium, the Kernersville, North Carolina studio owned by ex-R.E.M. producer and power-pop figure Mitch Easter, who added percussion to one track. John Agnello engineered and co-produced, with D’Agostino again joined by Charlotte Anne Dole, Patrick Dole, and Rachel Browne.
Albums