A year ago, I wrote a blog post about the return of Christian Williams, read more here (opens in a new window). Maybe there will come a new gothic folk album. In due course. At the appropriate juncture, in the fullness of time. When the moment is ripe, when the necessary procedures have been completed, nothing precipitate, of course. In the meantime we have to make do with something smaller. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of American independence Christian Williams has released a four-song EP "Toward a More Perfect Union". From the product decription in an e-mail: "Longtime listeners of my music will recognize the first two songs on the EP, “Empire” and “Same Song.” Both first appeared on my 2008 album Thirty Minutes with Christian Williams, but I was never happy with the mastering or exposure the songs on that album received so I found the opportunity with this EP to fix that. Thematically, they still have contemporary relevance for me 18 years later and work well as the opening salvo of the EP. I paired those two remastered songs with two brand new ones that I’ve been working on over the last year, “Mammon” and “This Great Divide." Thematically, they sum up my feelings about the current state of my country and hope for brighter days ahead." So the title say much everything. Christian Willams develops his thoughts further on Bandcamp: "Most of the time, my songwriting topics are big-picture morality themes and timeless philosophical rumination. Occasionally, though, I’ll be driven to write a song that’s a direct response to contemporary events or something that bothers me in the news. That’s the origin of the four folk songs on my new four-song EP I'm calling Toward a More Perfect Union. The common thread that ties all four songs together is my opinion that the United States is a country in distress. Everything these days has become an allegiance test to show which side you’re on - us vs. them - and we’re currently being led by people who hold on to their power by creating and encouraging those divisions. Meanwhile, there are a lot of us in the middle who refuse to be siloed into one of two extremes. We recognize that lasting and meaningful progress is gained through cooperation and compromise, not coercion. We also realize that an essential ingredient toward becoming a “more perfect union” is acknowledging and reckoning with the darker chapters of our history, not forgetting or erasing them. We know that if it becomes harder for future generations to learn about and understand the mistakes we’ve made as a country, it just becomes easier to repeat them. I don’t expect every American to agree with the sentiments I share through these songs, but I do hope you will at least give them a few moments to knock around in your head. If you still disagree and they make you as sad and angry as I felt when I wrote them, that just tells me you care about this country as much as I do. And believe it or not, I think those are the first steps toward us finding common ground." You can listen to "Toward a More Perfect Union" and buy it in digital format at Bandcamp, just click here (opens in a new window).