Kentucky singer/songwriter S.G. Goodman opens up about grief, legacy, and the traditional apply that impressed her breathtaking third album ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – a file of inheritance, survival, and the seek for that means. Talking with Atwood Journal, she displays on loss and duty whereas taking us track-by-track via her most susceptible and visionary work to this point.
Stream: “Hearth Signal” – S.G. Goodman
With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my duty in passing down tales and beliefs.
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Okentucky’s personal S.G. Goodman doesn’t write albums a lot as she builds them from the marrow of lived expertise – fragile and unflinching, jagged and stylish.
Planting by the Indicators is her most cinematic, intimate, and devastatingly stunning file but: A panoramic journey via grief and survival, inheritance and duty, and the everlasting tug-of-war between management and give up. Her third file aches inside and outside; Goodman’s lyrics are daring and unforgettable, her voice a vessel of uncooked humanity, wrapped in a heat, expansive soundscape that glows like firelight in an all-encompassing darkness.
Pushed by an unshakable ardour and cast within the fires of loss and grief, Planting by the Indicators is Goodman’s most susceptible and visionary album but – a resonant file of inheritance and survival, informed with piercing honesty and soul-stirring cinematic grace. It’s an album that burns sluggish and regular till it consumes every thing in its path – together with our ears and our hearts alongside the way in which.
Launched June 20, 2025 through Slough Water Information / Thirty Tigers, Planting by the Indicators arrives because the extremely anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Tooth Marks and 2020’s Outdated Time Feeling. These albums made Goodman one in every of America’s most important singer/songwriters, incomes her vital acclaim, an NPR Tiny Desk efficiency, and the Americana Awards’ “Greatest Rising Artist” prize. She’s toured relentlessly with the likes of Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket, and Margo Worth, whereas her instant-classic ballad “House and Time” has been lined by each Tyler Childers and Dev Hynes.
However the highway took its toll. Between the lack of her beloved canine Howard and the tragic dying of her pal and mentor Mike Harmon, Goodman was compelled to reckon with mortality and reminiscence, absence and belonging.
“After writing and releasing my earlier albums, I felt an urgency to focus my consideration on a topic that once I’m gone, my nieces and nephew would be capable of hear our historical past,” she tells Atwood Journal. “With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my duty in passing down tales and beliefs.”
That urgency grew to become Planting by the Indicators, a file steeped within the historical apply of ‘planting by the indicators’ – the Appalachian folks perception that the cycles of the moon ought to information life’s rhythms, from gardening and haircuts to weaning youngsters.
“Planting by the indicators is an historical apply, the place it’s believed that as a result of the moon impacts water, that in sure phases of the moon, there are extra suited situations to do issues than others,” Goodman explains. “As a result of all residing issues encompass water, it’s believed that each one residing issues are affected by the moon. I used to be weaned from my Mom by the indicators. I grew up listening to issues about chopping your hair in accordance with the moon and planting gardens below sure phases of the moon.”
For Goodman, this was each private and common. “‘Planting By The Indicators’ isn’t one thing that’s distinctive to my household alone, or to any group of individuals,” she provides.
“I can hint among the practices again to my pagan Celtic ancestors, in addition to discuss the way it was adopted to suit the beliefs of my conservative Christian ancestors. That’s my specific story, however all historical civilizations first appeared to nature to information them. It’s our collective heritage and belongs to every of us.”
As with each Goodman file, the making of Planting by the Indicators was as transformative because the songs themselves. “Individuals who file typically discuss ‘studio magic,’” she says. “One of many tracks I actually felt this expertise was whereas monitoring ‘Planting by the Indicators,’ my title monitor. My preliminary sonic strategy to that music was not a stripped-down folks music, however after monitoring it with the total band, I knew instinctively that we would have liked to go one other course. I had blown my voice out the night time earlier than, so I wished to experiment with the association with out being the one singing the lyrics. I requested Matt Rowan to steer the music, and shortly after singing calmly alongside him to show the vocal melody, the studio magic was recognized. We have been purported to sing ‘Planting by the Indicators’ collectively. Matt has been one in every of my longest music collaborators to-date, and he had agreed to affix me once more as co-producer for this album.”
That steadiness of collaboration and instinct threads via the file. The place her debut and sophomore data leaned closely on rootsy folk-rock grit, Goodman noticed this one as an opportunity to broaden the palette. “Sonically, I got here into the recording course of with the aim of increasing my strategy with extra trendy components than I utilized in earlier recordings. I like an natural strategy to recording, and selected a staff of gamers and producers who I knew would be capable of actualize our imaginative and prescient.”
The opening monitor, “Satellite tv for pc,” seems like a transmission from the in-between: A smoldering fever dream the place Goodman’s trembling voice hovers over sparse guitars and a gentle beat, whispering warnings into the static. “Look what it’s completed to you,” she repeats, the road touchdown like each a lullaby and a lament. The music aches with disconnection and distortion, circling anxieties concerning the alerts we belief, the false lights we observe, and the widening hole between humanity and the pure world.
If “Satellite tv for pc” appears to be like to the heavens, “Hearth Signal” turns inward, naming the flame at Goodman’s core. Right here, she wrestles with exhaustion and endurance, questioning how a lot of the hearth one can bear to hold whereas nonetheless insisting on the significance of maintaining tales alive. Collectively, these early songs body the album as each cosmic and deeply private – tethered to the celebs whereas rooted in Goodman’s Kentucky soil.
Nicely, I’m simply making an attempt to construct a very good life
Nailing down shingles in the fitting signal
No curling within the daylight
Ah, just like the outdated people stated they might
Some tried to make me out a liar
However I’m a dreamer with no solutions
Oh, who’s been residing just like the solar don’t shine
On the identical canine’s ass day by day
Oh, and who’ll put the hearth out
Who’ll put the hearth out
That duality is laid naked in “Snapping Turtle” and “Michael Advised Me,” two of the album’s most piercing meditations. Within the former, Goodman transforms a childhood reminiscence into one thing mythic: A harrowing scene of children tormenting a turtle in a small Kentucky city, and her personal visceral act of stepping in. The brutality of the second turns into allegory, a meditation on cruelty, justice, and the impossibility of controlling how life unfolds. Over sparse, pulsing instrumentation, she sings with a voice that feels each fragile and unflinching, carrying grief and defiance in equal measure. “The opening scene of ‘Snapping Turtle’ nonetheless will get me,” Goodman admits. “Not all my songs are deeply private, however ‘Snapping Turtle’ is certainly one in every of them that basically got here from my life, so these lyrics imply quite a bit.”
If you’re a farm child in a small city
You drive earlier than the authorized age
And I gained’t overlook that day
Once I drove up on some low-down children
They have been all huddled round a poor snapping turtle
Taking turns with a stick
They have been beating the hell out of it
So I requested if I might take a lick
Once I raised my hand,
I introduced down the wrath of God himself
Beat these children until they have been crying out for assist
I couldn’t assist myself
Then threw the turtle within the truck
Ooh, small city is the place my thoughts will get caught
– “Snapping Turtle,” S.G. Goodman
In “Michael Advised Me,” agricultural knowledge turns into metaphor, with pruning reframed as the fragile, harmful work of tending to human relationships – chopping again in hopes of regrowth, or risking complete severance. Each songs ache with grief and the hope of reconciliation, proof of Goodman’s means to carry devastation and tenderness in the identical hand. The title monitor then gathers all of those strands – the celestial and the earthly, the inherited and the intimate – and distills them right into a hushed hymn. “Planting by the Indicators” bends historical lunar knowledge right into a love music, a reminder that timing and tenderness matter as a lot within the coronary heart as they do within the backyard.
The file’s journey culminates in “Heaven Music,” a nine-minute odyssey that seems like each parable and pilgrimage. In its winding verses, Goodman units off on a highway journey towards the afterlife, filling the automotive with characters like Love, Religion, Hope, Sin, and even Jesus himself – every passenger an emblem, every cease a reckoning. It’s sprawling, surreal, and darkly humorous, but beneath the allegory lies a uncooked meditation on grief and want, on what it means to go away behind the recognized in quest of one thing past.
As the ultimate notes fade, we’re left with a haunting chorus – “possibly if I see it, then I’ll need it” – a line that lingers like each query and confession. “Heaven Music” doesn’t supply decision, nevertheless it does one thing rarer: it leaves us suspended in surprise, reminded that the act of looking out is itself sacred.
I purchased an outdated Malibu from the man subsequent door
Then I did, what many have completed earlier than
I stuffed the tank up full, and took out for heaven
Once I first lower out, all I had was my canine
However I used to be informed he wouldn’t be right here for lengthy
Gave him a french fry and I requested him,
does he know the place we’re going?
He simply appeared out the window,
and to this point, no heaven was exhibiting
Then a stranger hopped in on the first pink gentle
She stated, my title is Love and does that canine chunk?
I informed her no however would she thoughts using shotgun?
Mentioned I by no means cared a lot for Love behind me or on the run
the primary hundred miles, the speaking was gentle
She stated, you possibly can’t get to heaven driving via the night time
And by the way in which I by no means requested your motive for going
If I’m heading there with you, i suppose I higher be figuring out
And I stated
that possibly if I see it, then I’ll need it
Perhaps if I see it then I’ll need it
Taken collectively, Planting by the Indicators isn’t just a group of cathartic songs, however a wide ranging physique of labor – intimate and immense, delicate and unflinching – that stands because the fullest realization of S.G. Goodman’s artistry to this point.
It succeeds as each private testimony and lasting legacy, reworking her non-public historical past into one thing communal and resonant. Each monitor feels certain by goal, every lyric sharpened by the burden of duty, but the music itself breathes with heat, humanity, and beauty. In threading her personal story via historical knowledge and timeless truths, Goodman has created a deeply private album that additionally feels common: A soul-stirring reckoning with grief, inheritance, and survival, and a file destined to go away its mark on all who hear.
For her half, Goodman hopes Planting by the Indicators evokes reflection in its viewers. “I’d wish to imagine the hints I’ve included result in individuals reflecting on their relationship with nature, with the celebs and crops and water and planets round us,” she shares. “We’re nature’s youngsters, and we should always act accordingly.”
This album has additionally been about reclaiming presence. “In contrast to a few of my earlier albums, I’m really making an attempt to be much less on-line and extra current in my life throughout the roll-out. However it’s actually gratifying to see individuals reply to it particularly stay. I performed two nights in my residence state of Kentucky proper after the album got here out, and that was a deeply particular expertise.”
And so Planting by the Indicators closes not simply as Goodman’s most formidable and transferring file to this point, however as her most human – a reminder that life, just like the moon, strikes in cycles, and that our tales are price passing down.
Expertise the total file through our under stream, and peek inside S.G. Goodman’s Planting by the Indicators with Atwood Journal as she goes track-by-track via the music and lyrics of her third studio album! In Goodman’s arms, the previous isn’t simply remembered – it’s replanted, in order that it could develop once more.
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Stream: ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – S.G. Goodman
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Satellite tv for pc
The entire premise behind the apply of Planting By The Indicators, is that we are able to look to nature to know when can be one of the best time to do one thing to get one of the best outcomes. I’m occupied with how males are obstructing nature and its historical data, whereas the human situation stays the identical: that to outlive we have to be in concord with nature and one another.
Hearth Signal
My essence, “Who’ll put the hearth out?” The one one who can put my hearth out is myself. I imagine that I’m naming what I really feel is my hearth/essence all through the actions described within the music. After touring relentlessly from 2021-2023, I got here off the highway questioning my goal and decisions. Individuals are fast to inform you that you’re not working onerous sufficient, however sluggish in telling you that you’re working onerous sufficient. That appears to be as much as you, in addition to your “why.” Moreover, I’ve centered myself round the concept that passing down tales connects us via generations. This notion was a driving drive within the creation of this album as a complete.
I Can See The Satan
To me it is a music about how all through our lives we’re in a position to really feel the results of sunshine and what it brings in a bodily and non secular means. I imagine that “strolling within the sunshine” is an optimistic declaration of mindset and worldview that’s onerous to hold onto, however I imagine that it’s symbolic of an innate want all of us share. I imagine it’s a definite human expertise to seek for the great all through circumstantial hardship. The outdated saying of while you see sunshine via the rain, implies that the satan is thrashing his spouse. The way in which this outdated saying has been described to me is seeing the great via the dangerous.
Snapping Turtle
“Snapping Turtle” represents the expertise of wanting to manage outcomes, and the onerous realization that in lots of instances that’s unimaginable. As an alternative of getting management, we’re left merely a witness to the situations the life’s seasons supply in our personal lives and in these round us.
Michael Advised Me
If you prune a plant, the timing and method can quantity to a more healthy future for the plant or its destruction. In response to the indicators, there are higher instances to prune than others. In terms of human relationships, chopping individuals out of your life may end up in a relationship dying altogether, or house and time for it to develop a more healthy kind. I describe a narrative the place I’ve skilled this in a relationship with a pal. The story doesn’t include whether or not the friendship got here again, however the expertise of figuring out that it might.
Solitaire
The music “Solitaire” evokes the sport of life portrayed in two completely different card video games, with two completely different units of guidelines, however performed with the identical kind of playing cards. The river is present in Texas Maintain’em, and is the deciding think about a showdown throughout the recreation.
I’m In Love
On this music I take advantage of imagery and eventualities which can be easy and vivid regarding the human expertise of being in love. In contrast to lots of the ideas present in “Planting By The Indicators” this music hinges on a common expertise, which is simple for everybody to imagine and acknowledge in themself and others.
Planting By The Indicators
This music takes the bodily ideas of “Planting By The Indicators” and bends them right into a love music about making use of these to the emotional. A brief abstract can be that in love, we’ve got the bodily and emotional, and that even inside that actuality we’re striving for one of the best end result.
Heaven Music
Each human has inside them the need for what’s subsequent, the right way to get there, and sometimes in response to the fact of leaving what is thought. Throughout that pure quest, people have created ideas (Love, Religion, Sin, and so forth.) that inform our journey, all to attempt to higher perceive what it’s we should always count on, even when within the second we can’t understand what lies forward. The music ends with the chorus of “Perhaps if I see it then I’ll need it.” However this comes after the narrative ends with the protagonist being requested, “What they discovered from Sin.” That is important as a result of Sin wouldn’t be regarded as a typical medium of ethical crucial, however isn’t lust as want a motive all of us transfer ahead a technique or one other?
On a private be aware, I imagine one of many ideas not talked about on this music was that of grief. It wasn’t intentional to not point out it, however I imagine that every thing that was talked about in “Heaven Music” have been the substances essential to really feel and settle for grief. Dwelling is shedding and gaining alongside the way in which, and in case you are doing it proper, grief will likely be your closest passenger and reward.
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