The Marfa Tapes
| Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall
The Marfa Tapes
The Marfa Tapes is a collaborative album by American country artists Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall, released on May 7, 2021 through RCA Nashville. This is Randall's fourth, Lambert's eighth, and Ingram's eleventh respectively. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Variety
Lambert strips it down, yet sounds grander than ever in her fashion, on a Texas trio project with Ingram and Randall.
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Saving Country Music
The Marfa Tapes is one of the increasingly-frequent opportunities for mainstream country artists to do something a little bit outside of the box. This wouldn’t work every time, but it works here. And along with all the very fair concerns and complaints about the lack of quality of the recordings that some will bring forth about this album, it still feels like a sum positive, not just for Jon Randall, Jack Ingram, and Miranda Lambert, but for country music in general that The Marfa Tapes made it to the public.
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mxdwn Music
It’s these immersive sound effects, chatter and laughter that make The Marfa Tapes something special, a window into the raw creativity, love of music and kinship of this country trinity that should put a smile on even the most jaded skeptics of acoustic records.
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Stereogum
Miranda Lambert has made an album that sounds like nothing else in her discography. The Marfa Tapes is an experiment, a far cry from those pop-country records that Lambert has made so well, but it sits right up there with any of them.
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Sputnik Music
A pop-country superstar retreats to the hillside and rediscovers her roots. Surrounded by close friends, it's as warm and inviting as her work has ever sounded.
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Americana Highways
The Marfa Tapes isn’t an audiophile’s dream, and it’s not meant to be. It’s two mics and a guitar, along with plenty of natural sound on the recordings – campfire, cows, coyotes and high desert winds all make cameos. It’s all about the songs and capturing the genuine warmth between Ingram, Lambert and Randall, which shows up in the banter between (and occasionally during) songs – it really is like a small, private show. There’s also fun country wordplay sprinkled across the record, whether it’s the sketchy characters in “Homegrown Tomatoes” (“Tequila shots, Bud Light top, she’s a little instigator”) or the wanna-be homewrecker in “Geraldene” (“You’re trailer park pretty, but you’re never gonna be Jolene”).
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Pitchfork
Somewhere between a demo collection, a live album with no audience, and a lo-fi left turn, the ad-hoc country trio’s desert recording session focuses on the simple joys of songwriting.
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In Review Online
The Marfa Tapes finds the three old-hats of country riding each other’s waves to melancholy and joyous heights.
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Paste Magazine
Truth is, the whole album is fun, even when it’s melancholy. The songwriting is first-rate, and the minimalist aesthetic suits these tunes in a way that more elaborate arrangements and polished production never would. The Marfa Tapes started as a passion project among friends, and turned out to be a showcase for Lambert’s versatility while shining a light on Ingram and Randall’s skill as writers, singers and players.
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The Musical Divide
It’s a sound and idea that all three have reached for in the past but have never quite stuck the landing until now, and while this is one of those lightning-in-a-bottle albums not meant to be indicative of where anyone is headed next, I’ll say it again – great songs connect regardless of the medium, and this is a rare gem worth the appreciation.
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Riff Magazine
Miranda Lambert and friends’ ‘The Marfa Tapes’ is prime country.
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