Tom House

A published poet since his teenage years, House edited and issued the journal raw bone throughout the 1980s. His first full-length recording, the 1997 album The Neighborhood Is Changing, mixes traditional country, folk, and offbeat contemporary singer/songwriting in ways that feel both unexpected and engaging. Players from Lambchop—the eccentric Nashville country-avant-rock ensemble—contribute to the arrangements and performances, yet House’s tone remains far less caustic than that of the band, even while steering clear of conventional norms. His delivery employs a strained, nasal drawl that approaches but stops short of outright instability; the material itself follows an insistently irregular approach to rhythm and duration that shifts from one passage to the next. Although the lyrics address familiar country motifs such as love and separation, the language is more forceful and acerbic than the usual formulas found in mainstream country or folk-based songwriting. House entered the recording world at a relatively advanced age, having previously issued only a pair of cassettes along with a song cycle and an opera drawn from William Faulkner’s writings. This White Man’s Burden appeared the following year.