Hamilton Leithauser

Greg Freeman

When Greg Freeman quietly released his debut album I Looked Out in 2022, it was immediately clear to the small community who heard it that the Vermont songwriter captured something intangibly exciting and distinctly American. Across 10 explosive songs that meld knotty indie rock with pastoral twang, he sings with a zealous urgency of shipwrecks, biblical visions, doomed drifters, dams breaking, and lives left in rearview mirrors. His evocative writing paints a world where revelation or ruin is behind every corner but it always leaves room for hope and human connection. A resoundingly confident LP, it’s a testament to Burlington’s vibrant music community and the pure magic of opening yourself up to creative risks and collaboration.

Now, for the first time, I Looked Out has been pressed to vinyl. Out digitally on Nov. 20 and on vinyl Jan. 17 via Canvasback/Transgressive, two bonus tracks are also available. On the digital release, there’s an acoustic duet version of “Long Distance Driver” with Merce Lemon, and on the vinyl, there’s the noisy sound collage “Sound Tests, Scraps, Lists.” Greg Freeman will release new music and this album’s full-length follow-up in 2025.

Though I Looked Out arrived seemingly fully formed, the album is the product of a transitional period for Freeman. When he started writing its songs in 2020, he graduated from the University of Vermont studying religion and anthropology. Unsure of what to do next, he worked in museums, was a bread baker, and even had a stint as a cemetery groundskeeper. While he’d played in bands around Burlington, namely with Lily Seabird and the experimental rock outfit Rockin’ Worms, his own music was sparse and solo. “Before I Looked Out,  I had just done everything myself: recording a lot of layered guitars and layered vocals,” he says. With that year’s societal upheaval leading to an abundance of alone time, Freeman decided to double down on writing. He soon came out of isolation with two finished songs: “Long Distance Driver” and “Colorado.”

“Long Distance Driver” is a woozy, minor key dirge that finds Freeman’s voice somewhere between a croak and a coo. He sings, “I don’t care where you’ve been / I just want you to smile / Or at least pretend.” It’s a dark and near-menacing tune that highlights Freeman’s propensity for vivid, lyrical world-building. “That song came out of a year where I was just writing without any pressure,” he says. “I didn’t even know if I was going to record it.” Eventually, Freeman decided to try something he’d never done before: bring on a cast of collaborators.

While recording I Looked Out, Freeman and his co-producer Noah Kesey were content just to see where the creative process took them. “The most defining thing about the creation of that record is that we didn’t really try to do anything with it,” says Freeman. “There was no specific intention with how we were going to put it out, or timeline, or even how it was going to sound.” Instead, they leaned on welcome surprises and happy accidents. Take the thundering “Colorado,” which bursts through with a careening, overwhelming energy. Inspired by maximalist production on Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies Man, Freeman wanted to stack the song with as many instruments and players as possible: strings, horns, keys, etc. The result is a cathartic and chaotic orchestra that never veers off track. The experiment paid off. “It’s so hard to convince yourself that you’re writing a record, but then you have one song you really believe in so it helps you get to that place,” he says.  “‘Colorado’” is definitely that song for me.”

With that north star guiding the process, the experiments didn’t stop. The propulsive squall that ignites “Connect to Host” came out of a jam from a discarded tune, repurposed with tape warble, roaring guitars, and barreling drums from Zack James (Dari Bay). “Towers” simmers with a roiling intensity that eventually rips apart at the seams: strings clashing with the blistering, feedback-laden guitars. Elsewhere, closer “Palms” boasts biblical imagery taken from Freeman’s studies of Christian mysticism, heretics, and prophets. At times, it feels apocalyptic but he yelps, “If it’s not the end of it all / It must be a strange kind of grace” before soothing pedal steel and guitars stumble on a sense of closure. The through line of I Looked Out is how he resonantly balances interpersonal struggle with global calamity, raising the emotional stakes while holding a mirror to the self and society.

Following its release, which had no PR campaign, label, or music industry promo, it still received raves from Stereogum and Uproxx. Since then, Freeman’s toured relentlessly with a backing band featuring bassist Lily Seabird, multi-instrumentalist Cam Gilmour, pedal steel player Ben Rodgers, and drummer Scott Maynard. While many of those players also guest on the album, the palpable and expansive energy of their live show has found Freeman sharing the stage with A. Savage, Empty Country, Florry, and Sadurn. “The music scene is so good in Burlington that it didn’t feel like I was doing anything remarkable with I Looked Out because everybody had great bands there,” says Freeman. “You gotta try a little bit harder in this city.”