S.G. Goodman returns from the Western Kentucky bottomland with her latest full-length album,
Planting by the Signs, Available June 20, 2025 on her very own Slough Water Records via Thirty
Tigers. Composed of songs inspired by love, loss, reconciliation, and the aforementioned ancient
practice. Eleven tracks highlighted by the critically-acclaimed and award-winning artist’s singular
voice and her penchant for juxtaposing vulnerable folk music with punchy rock ‘n roll, replete with
chiming guitars, ethereal atmospherics, and her DIY ethos. Goodman provides a timely reminder
that the only way forward is together, and that we must always take into account humanity’s
dependence on and responsibility to the natural world.

Back in the early hours of 2023, Goodman told her late friend Mike Harmon and his wife Therese
that she wanted to base her next album around the concept of planting by the signs, which she
had heard about growing up, and recently rediscovered while reading a volume of Foxfire. She
remembered general points from her rural southern childhood - how planting a garden, or weaning
a baby, or getting a haircut are best timed in accordance with the cycle of the moon. A concept
diametrically opposed to the tech-obsessed, profit margin-driven mania swirling around her.
Through exploring themes related to planting by the signs, Goodman hoped to help herself and
others reconcile this jarring disconnect, as well to pass along the story of the practice to her nieces
and nephews - the latter being a role she took very seriously.

But it wasn’t an easy path to writing Planting by the Signs or to the recording studio. 2023 saw
the passing of her beloved dog, Howard, as well as the tragic death of Harmon, a father figure
and mentor. Mike was mentioned in Goodman’s song, “Red Bird Morning” on Old Time Feeling,
her debut. Her band used to practice in the quonset hut behind his house. He would check on her
house while she toured. Often, Goodman would call him for advice from the road. A few days
before he died, he advised her about putting chains on her van during a snow storm. He once
drove that same van from Boston to Chicago so the band could play a one-off in the middle of a
tour. He was a rock for Goodman, and a rock star in his own right.

Harmon’s death led to Goodman reconciling with her longtime collaborator and guitarist, Matthew
Rowan, who had become estranged from her following a year of grueling live shows in 2021.
Rowan and Goodman had met in their early 20s while at college in the Murray, KY, indie rock
scene, and eventually began playing music together. His idiosyncratic guitar work became an
essential part of her production. He wrote most of the guitar parts on her first two records, and
their creative relationship stretched for nearly 10 years. But life on the road isn’t for all, one thing
led to another, and Rowan decided to step away. After Harmon passed, Matt was one of the first
people Goodman called. From there they began to mend their relationship, and eventually, once
she started working on her new album, S.G. asked Rowan to be her co-producer. The album
would not exist in its current form without their reconciliation.

With over 150 performances on the books in ‘23, including headlining sold out tours and opening
for the likes of Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell from Red Rocks to the Grand Ole’ Opry, there was
also little time for songwriting, much less recording. As she sings on “Fire Sign,” S.G. was working
like “the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass everyday.” So, after a restful, somewhat
celebratory winter in the beginning months of 2024, she began writing and demo-ing a new album,
eventually Drew Vandenberg, who also co-produced and engineered Teeth Marks, to join he and
Rowan as co-producers.

Finally, after nearly three years of promoting her critically-acclaimed and award winning album,
Teeth Marks, with a touring schedule that would make the most seasoned road-dog wince,
Goodman decamped to the Nutt House in Sheffield, AL, in the fall of 2024. Alongside co-producer
Drew Vandenberg, Rowan, and a cast of musical characters, Goodman tracked what is by no
exaggeration her best record to date. With songs like “Fire Sign,” “Satellite,” “Snapping Turtle,”
“Michael Told Me,” “Heaven” and “I’m In Love,” Planting by the Signs finds Goodman exploring
this old story and other themes in the only way she knows; with a fresh musical and lyrical
perspective, vivid, incisive detail, and a heaping dose of empathy and compassion.