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\n\tBack in early 2025, when Willi Carlisle<\/a> was on tour with Tyler Childers<\/a> in Australia, the two artists fostered what would become a creative partnership. Fueled by talks about the musicians they loved and some Wallace Stephens poetry, Carlisle was inspired to write \u201c<\/em>The Mason Jar at the Center of the World, the first single from his forthcoming double album, The Universal Bubba<\/em> \u2014 which features Childers in the producer\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n \n\tDue this November, it\u2019s the first record that Childers has produced (other than his own), and finds the endlessly creative Carlisle honing and expanding his brand of folk music that leans into quirk and tradition in equal measure. Listen to \u201c<\/em>The Mason Jar at the Center of the World,\u201d a banjo and fiddle-driven existential meditation, below.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThis record came together by luck, passion, and circumstance,\u201d Carlisle tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cTyler and I had talked a lot about songs while I was opening for him. We sat down and played old-time fiddle music together, too, which was a big joy. I played banjo, Tyler fiddled, and we just gabbed on this and that. We talked about \u2018Tomcat and a Dandy,\u2019 his song on Snipe Hunter<\/em>, and played it through a few times together. It truly was just a fun time, an Appalachian and an Ozark guy picking tunes, sharing folk music.\u201d<\/p>\n \n