Kurt Vile's dazzled and disoriented songwriting usually leans heavily into slacker guitar rock influences, but the acoustic instrumentation and hints of twang that sometimes surface suggest there might be some latent country-folk inspirations deep in the mixture. The five-song EP Speed, Sound, Lonely KV brings Vile's country leanings into the spotlight, centering the short collection around a duet he recorded with his tour mate and songwriting hero John Prine a few months before his death in 2020. The song, a cover of Prine's 1979 tune "How Lucky," is jaunty and bright, Vile's voice sounding relatively light when it joins in with Prine's weathered rasp. The EP was recorded piecemeal over the course of four years, with several sessions taking place at Nashville's Butcher Shoppe studios. In addition to the bittersweet beauty of "How Lucky," Vile also covers Prine's "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" by himself, as well as Cowboy Jack Clement's melodic ramble "Gone Girl." All three covers are faithfully delivered, and peeling back some of the reverb haze from Vile's sound makes for some of the more vulnerable music of his catalog. In addition to the three country covers, Vile and his band offer up two previously unreleased originals. "Dandelions" is closer to the kind of drifty, drawn-out two-chord rockers that made up albums like Bottle It In, while the woodsy timbres and brushed drums of "Pearls" fit more with the lazy country styling of the rest of the EP. Speed, Sound, Lonely KV is relatively short for a songwriter who regularly turns in albums longer than an hour, but it's a sweet glimpse into the softer side of Vile's personality. It's tender and sad without any of the distance that he sometimes puts between himself and his listener, instead offering just a few uncluttered country-leaning songs that are simple, direct, and a little bit lonely. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi

1		Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
2		Gone Girl
3		Dandelions
4		How Lucky
5		Pearls