Phosphoresecent is just one guy, talented Athens resident Matthew Houck. His creaking tenor bends and vibrates to the point where it sounds like it might come completely unhinged. His woozy, rootsy arrangements stagger and stumble forward as if compelled by the same world-weary persistence that carried the Joads to California.

The tone of Aw Come Aw Wry varies. The austere country waltz "Not a Heel" recalls early Will Oldham. But there's also the warm, gauzy folk-rave, "I Am a Full Grown Man (I Will Lay in the Grass All Day)," which features bubbling sonics like Mike Mogis' work with Bright Eyes. Tying it together is the song fragment "Aw Come Aw Wry," whose three different takes run from haunted organ and horn dirge to a ramshackle handclap hootenanny, then to a hazy, somnambulant steel guitar lope. Like a thematic thread, the fragment runs throughout the album. The minute-long reprises lead seamlessly into the following songs, and even find ways into the melodic structure of "Lost Name." Oldham's influence is not only felt in Houck's vocals but the lost, forlorn characters he constructs, who have "been long against this night ... made a mess of my whole life" and lament "I will never go home."

Phosphorescent's CD release party is Sat., June 11, at the Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. Call for price and time. 404-522-3950. www.badearl.com.