With a heavy-duty catalog of new material for a career first double album, The Universal Bubba marks a half dozen releases for folksinger Willi Carlisle and reaches new heights with the added accelerant of first time producer Tyler Childers. In an all-time DIY effort, Childers and his band convened to a makeshift home studio nestled in the Bywater District of New Orleans for two weeks to cut 17 tracks that expand Carlisle's sonic scrapbook and capture the off-kilter characters living in his songs.

Hailed as "One of country music's most important and unmistakable voices." by PASTE, Carlisle embraced the freedom to wander across genres both familiar and new, testing out instrumentation and toying with the surreality of traditions being turned on their head.

"I think this one goes to outer space," says Carlisle. "This is the widest range of influences that I've ever had. It touches on funk, Americana, Cajun, oldtime, and experimental music."

Exploration aside, Carlisle's mission as a folksinger largely remains the same - documenting the stories and struggles of the people and balancing the humor and hope of existence.

"I want to write songs that prove the old weird America didn't go anywhere, that we are living and dying for it everyday. I believe there's noble work to do in that context. That if we feel despair, we don't need to because there's so much good work to do."