Drag City recording artists the Palace Brothers are playing tonight

at the Mercury Theatre. Offering strong, often cryptic, songwriting

and sparse acoustic country, this Kentucky troupe should present a unique

and moving performance.

The band consists of two core songwriters and a constantly changing group

of musicians. “The name ‘Palace Brothers’ implies either myself or Todd

Brashear are involved,” says Will Oldham, who is most often cited as the

group’s leader.

Oldham doesn’t say a lot about his music. Pressed to describe his lyrical

inspiration, he says songs such as “Merida,” from the album There Is

No-One What Will Take Care of You, are “onerically biographical.”

Acoustic “anti-folk” has been heralded in magazines like Option as

the new thing in pop music. Oldham doesn’t feel that the Palace Brothers

are part of such a community, though it might make for a higher quality of

songs being written.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I guess different people react to records

they hear in different ways. There could be a new songwriting thing.”

Oldham does cite Chicago’s Bill Callahan, and his band Smog, who are often

labeled anti-folk, as a performer he enjoys. “We’ve seen him play a couple

of times,” he says. “We just saw him (recently). It was a really good

show.”

Oldham relates songwriting to other forms of expression, such as in the

song “I Am A Cinematographer,” from the group’s recent self-titled release.

He sees similarities in the processes.

“It’s about taking on the task of a cinematographer,” he says. “A guy wrote

a book about 20 years ago about cinematography, but it was about a lot of

other stuff. There are similar processes between what this guy was talking

about and the songwriting and recording process.”

Along those same lines, one subject Oldham does like to talk about is film.

“It’s like music,” says Oldham. “It’s something that lives and breathes.”

Most recently he watched videos of Autumn Leaves starring Joan

Crawford, and Portrait of Jenny starring Joseph Cotton.

“We go to the pictures about five times a month,” he says. His favorite

films include Mary Pickford’s first talkie, Coquette, and cult

horror films like Dementia 13 and Flesh and Blood.

Local guitar and drum punk duo Atom Bomb Pocket Knife open tonight’s

show around 10 p.m. Admission is $5.