DICKIE

Dick Prall is a master of what a recent interviewer called “self-deprecating indie rock.” For almost a decade, the 55-year-old Iowa artist has been best known as Dickie, the loving nickname that his late mother bestowed on him before she passed away in 2013. Dickie’s newest release, the Headful of Hiss EP, is a gleaming testament to his ever-strengthening gifts as a songwriter, spanning lush folk, irresistibly catchy pop, yearning alternative, windswept heartland rock, and the timeless sensibility of ’60s classics. Produced in Des Moines by Bryan Vanderpool, of illustrious folk-pop duo the Well Pennies, the record comprises five exquisitely well-wrought songs that cloak ruminations on anxiety, substance abuse, and depression in majestic, sweetly tuneful, aw-shucks beauty.