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Feb 22, 2022 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Wyndham Garnett

Indie folk singer/songwriter Matthew Davidson has made his name both as an eclectic singer/songwriter talent and prolific collaborator. Davidson began recording as Twain in the mid 2000s and continued releasing music under the name even while he was a member of other indie folk outfits like The Low Anthem, Spirit Family Reunion, and Deslondes. He signed with indie label Keeled Scales in 2017 and since has been a frequent contributor to projects from Buck Meek and Big Thief, including contributing to six songs from their new album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You.

Twain was mostly quiet last year, sharing only a new collaborative single with Mikayla McVey, “On Naming.” However, today Davidson is back with his first single of the new year, “King of Fools,” premiering early with Under the Radar.

Twain’s latest effort continues to show him as a songwriter of uncommon emotional weight. “King of Fools” looks both into the annals of history and to Davidson’s own life to detail scenes of decadence, greed, and pain. Davidson fully inhabits the role of the prophetic folk troubadour, exploring the evils of past and present with warm pastoral melodies and raw emotive vocals. He ends the song with a poignant indictment of humankind’s everlasting greed一Now I watch the fighting over the womb of the earth / Spilling blood for proverbs that they neither side have learned / And I see a bunch of children fighting over toys / How long must they die and die and die / To satisfy the king of fools?”

As Davidson explains, “The premise of this song is that evil is a numbness; it wonders if numbness is worse than pain. The song combines an image of the Spanish Inquisition with a scene from my own life and an allusion to modern warfare. These all just came spilling out into the song.”

Check out the song below, out tomorrow February 23rd via Keeled Scales.