The natural world figures in a lot across Thomas Dollbaum\u2019s \u201cBirds of Paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New Orleans-based singer-songwriter<\/a> grew up about 20 minutes north of Tampa, Florida, in a place where the rural starts to overtake the suburban. And as he was writing the songs that would end up on his forthright new album, Dollbaum says he was thinking about a certain time in his life and the intertwining memories of late high school and early college.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was completely intentional,\u201d Dollbaum says. \u201cI think my memories are tied a lot to landscape and place and the natural world there. I feel like that just kind of came through when I was writing.\u201d<\/p>\n Dollbaum sets scenes<\/a> in burned-out sugarcane fields, where high school football players chase rabbits, and among pine trees and lakes. Coyotes, cardinals, waterbirds and scrub jays also make appearances.<\/p>\n On the album, there also are cheap motels, questionable strangers asking for favors and dark highways lit by headlights looking for I-95. Those details paint in songs that will feel familiar to anyone, especially Southerners, who came of age in rundown places.<\/p>\n \u201cBirds of Paradise\u201d is out now via Dear Life Records<\/a>, and Dollbaum and his band play an album release show<\/a> at 9 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at Saturn Bar. Lawn and Maddy Kirgo open.<\/p>\n