Kevin Bronson on April 5th, 2013

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Will Courtney makes time stop. Or, at least, the bear-huggable singer-songwriter slows the world down to a manageable pace. Courtney, known as Brother Will to the many friends he has made in the many places he has lived (he’s received mail in Austin, Nashville, Los Angeles and now Santa Fe, N.M.), crafts folk music that’s salve for the body blows of today’s post-post-modern pandemonium. As a central figure in Brothers and Sisters, Courtney traded in the gang’s-all-here Americana that experienced a fashion resurgence a couple of years after the band’s second album (2008), and his forthcoming solo album “A Century Behind” has the same emotional purity, if in a more stripped-down setting. Recorded in L.A. with producer Raymond Richards (who plays the bass parts and provides the twangy stuff), “A Century Behind” (out April 22) features contributions from Zander Schloss, Franck Fiser, Tim Butterworth and Kaitlin Wolfberg, as well as guest vocals from the Parson Red Heads. Though too short at seven songs and 28 minutes, the album has a sage’s soul and a technician’s meticulous sense. Anybody who glommed onto recent releases from Low or Phosphorescent will feel right at home here, imagining Courtney, strumming away (as he did) in a log cabin on six acres in Texas for the better part of a year. Slowing things down, until they made sense.

||| Stream: “Gave Into Temptation”

||| Also: After the jump, check out the video for (and download) “There’s No Answer”:

||| Download: “There’s No Answer”