Guitarist and sonic storyteller Cameron Knowler releases “La Paz,” a spellbinding instrumental duet with Jordan Tice (Hawktail), just days before the arrival of his new album CRK, out this Friday, April 4 on Worried Songs. The track, named after a ghost town nestled in the Sonoran Desert north of Yuma, Arizona, shimmers with intricate acoustic interplay, conjuring the illusion of a single instrument breathing with nostalgia and yearning—reminiscent of the quiet magic in Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ “My Morphine.”
As the final preview of CRK, “La Paz” follows the tender “Felicity” and sun-dappled “Secret Water,” continuing the album’s deep dive into Knowler’s roots in Yuma, AZ—a place marked by its haunting beauty, border-town grit, and complicated family legacy. “These songs reflect on my childhood and what unraveled after my father’s sudden incarceration in 2008,” Knowler shares. “That stark environment and its surreal stillness shaped my creative lens.”
CRK is both a personal excavation and an homage to forgotten corners of the American Southwest. Blending the regional character of Frantz Casseus with the stripped-down brilliance of Bruce Langhorne, Knowler crafts a world of rusted propane tanks, scorched landscapes, and dusty prison walls, all rendered through fingerpicked clarity and restraint. His playing, often compared to the right hand of Norman Blake, finds kinship with the outsider sensibilities of Terry Allen and David Rawlings.
More than just a collection of songs, CRK is a quiet reckoning—an attempt to turn inherited grief into delicate beauty. “I grew up isolated, without schooling, with little contact with kids my age,” Knowler reflects. “This record is my way of making peace with that… of turning buried memory into something that can breathe.”
Listen to “La Paz” now and mark your calendar for CRK, out April 4 via Worried Songs.