Arise, Therefore

Will Oldham recorded Arise Therefore with a drum machine and almost no other instruments, which gave the entire record a strange, mechanical undercurrent under his high, broken voice. The title track is the most haunting thing on it — a quiet, fragmentary hymn built around the idea that you have to get up because there is no one else to do it for you.

The drum machine keeps its steady, slightly-too-human pulse the whole way through. Oldham sings over it as if he’s just woken up and is still remembering where he is. Play it on the first cold morning of the year. Put your feet on the floor. Get up anyway.