Micah P. Hinson

Settling down after a hard-knock life, Texas songwriter Micah P. Hinson returns with an emotionally-charged second album. Hinson spent some time in prison for forging drug prescriptions and writing bad cheques and also briefly dated a Vogue cover girl/stripper before his life really spiralled out of control and he declared bankruptcy. This was all before he was 20 years old. While working as a telemarketer, Hinson began writing and recording songs. Just as he began to gain a following, he suffered an incapacitating back injury, which required extended recovery time and got him back on prescription drugs. During this recuperation, Hinson wrote and recorded some of Opera Circuit flat on his back, chronicling some of his suffering. In context, the forlorn quality of parts of this record makes sense but it possesses a certain jubilation as well. "Seems Almost Impossible” and "She Don’t Own Me” sound a lot like David Berman’s Silver Jews. ”Drift Off to Sleep” and "Little Boys Dream” have some lovely strings, which appear throughout the record thanks to the arrangements of Hinson’s friend Eric Bachmann. "Letter from Huntsville” is a storm of a song that goes from subdued to rousing in the blink of an eye, and "My Time Wasted” is an impassioned musical collage with Hinson’s voice floating in and out of the din. Opera Circuit is an understandably heady dose of indie rock and there’s no telling what Micah P. Hinson might conceive in perfect health.