Rayland Baxter - If I Were A Butterfly (LP) - Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl

Rayland Baxter’s fourth album, If I Were A Butterfly, lands like a daydream with dirt on its boots. Released November 4, 2022 on ATO Records, it is the sound of a songwriter disappearing into a room and reemerging with a world. Baxter holed up at Thunder Sound, a converted rubber band factory in Kentucky, and produced the record himself. You can hear the place in the music, the roomy creak of floors and the playful clatter of found sounds, the way the songs feel stitched together by hand rather than machined into place.

The title track sets the tone. It drifts in on a soft collage of voices and textures, the melody floating while instruments flicker in and out, as if Baxter is letting you walk through his workshop while the gears are still turning. He leans into color as much as chord, folding in organ swells, pedal steel sighs, and tape-worn edges that make the whole thing glow. It is psych-folk one minute, country soul the next, and it never feels labored. He trusts the feel, and the feel carries him.

“Rubberband Man” snaps with a rubbery pulse that lives up to the name. It is one of those Baxter tunes that rolls downhill, unfussy and hummable, then suddenly pivots into a chorus that sticks to your ribs. His voice sits right in the pocket, ready to tilt from a conversational rasp to a clear, airy line. The hook is playful, but there’s a bittersweet tug under the surface that keeps it from floating away. That push and pull is all over the record. He lets light in, even when he is writing through grief.

That grief is not abstract. Baxter’s father, Bucky Baxter, the beloved pedal steel guitarist who spent years on the road with Bob Dylan, passed away in 2020. The album holds that loss gently. You can hear it in the way Rayland frames small comforts, in how a line will open to memory and then close with a smile. He has always been a sly writer, someone who can slip a heavy idea into a melody you want to whistle, but If I Were A Butterfly finds him more patient, more willing to let a moment breathe before he pins it down.

If you came to Baxter through Wide Awake in 2018, the shift is striking. That record, produced by Butch Walker, had a sharper, punchier snap. Here, the edges blur in pleasing ways. Self producing suits him. You get the sense he stayed up late at Thunder Sound, chasing a sound until it fell into his lap. A shaker might sit next to a drum machine thump, a bright acoustic guitar might brush against a dusty synth line, and a minute later a chorus of harmonies gathers like old friends at a kitchen table. It is eclectic without losing its center.

The sequencing helps, too. Side A eases you in, the title track blossoming into more grounded cuts that let the rhythm section take root, and Side B pulls the threads tighter, circling back to the album’s gentle thesis. This is where If I Were A Butterfly vinyl shines. The wide stereo fields, the low end bloom on the more groove-forward songs, and the little bits of room tone feel made for a turntable. If you are hunting for Rayland Baxter vinyl, this is a rewarding spin, the kind of record you put on for company and then end up flipping again after everyone leaves. I have already nudged more than one friend to buy Rayland Baxter records online after hearing how warm this one sits on a decent setup.

Baxter has always been a melody guy, but the textures are the secret sauce here. He tucks in field recordings and intimate asides, the sort of details you only catch on the third or fourth listen. That makes the album a grower. It also makes it a keeper, especially if you are building a shelf of Rayland Baxter albums on vinyl and want something that bridges Sunday morning ease and late night headspace. I can picture this slotting neatly into a Melbourne record store staff pick bin, the handwritten note saying something like, “Americana that drifts in on a breeze, then quietly knocks you flat.”

If I Were A Butterfly is not loud about its ambitions. It doesn’t need to be. It trusts melody, tone, and time spent in a room, and it asks you to do the same. Put it on, let it wash over you, and see what sticks. For my money, this is Baxter at his most expansive, a postcard from a strange season that somehow feels like home. And if you are browsing for If I Were A Butterfly vinyl or even checking out vinyl records Australia shops for a copy, consider this your nudge. This one rewards the ritual.