Billy stays busy

Will Oldham records so often and collaborates with so many other musicians that he starts to lose track of his newest material as he’s listing it off: There’s the tribute to British folk singer Shirley Collins, his work with Chicago electronic duo Bitchin’ Bajas, records with the Cairo Gang, Trembling Bells and the Everly Brothers cover album with singer-songwriter Dawn McCarthy .

“Then I’ve been writing a song with a couple of guys here in Louisville,” he continues. “I guess the days are full enough that I’m just trying to remember back to …” He trails off for a moment, then: “Oh yeah, and I made a record this year. It doesn’t come out till September, though. That seems like a million years away.”

He’s always wearing a different hat – co-writer, producer, self-described “instigator.” Oldham has been writing and performing for years, but you probably know him as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, a moniker he adopted in the late ’90s. He’s long been a critical favorite – Pitchfork named his 2006 album “The Letting Go” one of the best of its decade – and his songs have been covered by everyone from Johnny Cash to Marianne Faithfull to the Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan.

Each Bonnie “Prince” Billy song is unpredictable: You hang on his every note, wondering where his sparse melodies will end up. Over the course of nine solo albums, he’s crafted a striking combination of pastoral folk and American gothic that is equal parts morose and spellbinding, introspective and haunting.

His latest album, simply titled “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy,” was released independently last October, and it’s quite possibly his most intimate work to date: Not only did he produce and record it himself (it’s his voice and a guitar), but he personally oversaw every aspect of the album, from the design of the packaging to the record stores that would stock it.

“I worked with the layout people and I worked with the artists and I found all the artwork,” he said. “I bought the little plastic sleeves the CDs came in, worked with the cassette reproduction company, called and wrote to record stores and asked them if they wanted to buy it. None of those are things I do when I’m working with a record label.”

Oldham says his reasoning behind the hands-on approach was that he wanted to forge a closer bond with the people who were buying his music. Listening has become a less tactile and immersive experience, he says, because programs like Pandora and Spotify (where most of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s catalog is conspicuously absent) “take care of your music for you.”

“Things have changed a lot since I started buying records as a kid and making records in my 20s,” Oldham said. “And I can sort of tell how things have changed, but I wanted to know more. … The best way to do that was to eliminate as many middlemen as possible, to try and get the shortest distance between the recording and my audience’s ears.”

The next Bonnie “Prince” Billy album will be put out the traditional way, through Oldham’s long-term label Drag City. It’s likely that more people will hear the major label release than the self-released one – if you want to hear Oldham’s 2013 solo album, you’ll have to purchase a physical copy through his website – but for Oldham, the recording process is all about crafting music with like-minded musicians.

“The three main reasons for getting into this line of work are to make a living, to stay relatively sane and to have a foundation for collaboration and communication,” Oldham said. “Every record has been about identifying or creating a connection from one person to another person to another person, ideally to an audience. But you can’t bank on that. You can bank on the other musicians in the room and the other musicians onstage with you.”