Mustang Island

Mustang Island, the third album from Austin-based band Little Mazarn, is a gentle force. Waves of grief crest like surf on the Texas coast. Wild horses break through long-shuttered gates, only to come back around.

Lead songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Lindsey Verrill (she/her) joins bandmates Jeff Johnston (he/him) and Carolina Chauffe (they/them). The ten-song collection continues work with Dear Life Records.

A full-throated romp through the capabilities of community-minded songcraft, Mustang Island is both naturalistic and futuristic, completely recasting Little Mazarn's origins in primitive folk. Instead, the band reaches towards sonic experimentation and spacious expansion.

Lindsey's heart-opening vocals and Jeff's singing saw, both trademarks of the project, mix with unexpected bombastic drums, dissonant synthesizers, and a chorus of orchestral oddities. This mid-career ode dances confidently in the creative liberties granted by decades in the game – more dazzlingly lively, and honestly somber, than ever before.

The band’s crossroads branch across prominent Southern outsider music: On cello, Lindsey has recorded with Patty Griffin and Dana Falconberry. The Oklahoma-born Verrill didn’t write her first song until age 34. Jeff has played in Bill Callahan’s band, now drums with Thor & Friends and Orange Mothers, and still works on experimental puppet work.

Little Mazarn has also collaborated with Thor Harris (Swans), Honey Island General Store (2023), following two previous LPs on Dear Life and Self Sabotage Records, and past LPs released by Keeled Scales (2022) and 10 (2019). Alongside this new record, Lindsey directs music from Kate Wolf and Bob Wills to Six Texas Playboys, giving direct musical roots to Mustang Island.

Lindsey left her job at a hearing clinic to help call a hot check in school. Recording also aligned with the death of Lindsey’s father, a career educator, in Jeff and Lindsey’s hometown of Dallas. “Grief, and the avoidance of grief, is a big part of being human,” says Lindsey. “You make a choice, and then you grieve for the other choice. Or you finish a meal and literally grieve that it was so good. If you really befriend grief, you’re like, ‘oh, it’s here, in this pancake, which I loved so much that I ate the whole thing, and now it’s gone.’”