The Strugglers/ Brice Randall Bickford

Triangle expat Brice Randall Bickford has been crafting artfully downbeat Americana as The Strugglers for over a decade, during which time he has earned the name. The music is darkly elegant, and his voice is like mica, smooth yet fissured and mutedly sparkling. The project has been successful enough to earn two laudatory Pitchfork reviews and collaborations with heavy-hitters like the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, but not so successful as to warrant a Wikipedia entry or a steady label deal. “I don't want to be trying to find that big break when I'm 33," Bickford told the Independent Weekly in 2005, when he was 27. Six years later, he struggles on, with a new self-titled record in the can (his fifth) in search of a record label. Still, the music bears the gravitas of artistic work that is its own reward.

The Strugglers was produced by Scott Solter and features lyrics about “strung-out songstresses, haunted ex-hometowns, and absent ex-wives”—the usual American-gothic territory Bickford lays out under a patina of philosophical rumination. It includes a star-studded roster of local or formerly local talent (Bickford now lives in D.C.), such as St. Vincent violinist Daniel Hart. Many fine bands who don’t fit cleanly into the usual boxes have had difficulties establishing a brand in the marketplace: The Strugglers draw frequent comparisons to Will Oldham, but they may be too traditional for post-modern Americana and too weird for traditionalists.

Bickford’s music may have had the most resonance in the Triangle in the mid-2000s, during the heyday of like-minded acts such as the Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers. But with Mount Moriah preparing a debut-album-salvo that should bring dark country-rock back into local fashion, The Strugglers’ moment may be here again. Hopscotch will be a great opportunity to catch up with this under-appreciated gem, especially if you run a record label. —Brian Howe