Do you remember the feeling of hot, summer days; the way the heat of the day gave way to a purple twilight, while you listened to cicadas in the trees and chased the occasional firefly as it twinkled in the quickly fading light? It’s a feeling I look back on with nostalgia, where things seemed simple, yet somehow comforting. This is what Simon Flory’s newest album, Haul These Blues Away, feels like. Like a memory that strikes a chord in you and so you replay it again and again, only in the form of a collection of songs that feel more like a collection of short stories. In a way this is true, as Simon pulls from his own memories for all his music, “it’s suffused with the elements of his childhood – days spent in the fields, church sings, gravel roads, and genuine mule drawn molasses.” Aside from elements from his childhood, Haul These Blues Away also draws on inspiration from events and themes that have been prevalent in the last four years, “the duress of a divided country: the racial strife, authoritarianism, anti-democratic governance, the collapse of the agriculture sector, and loss of many folks' 'way of life.' "