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.

Prall grew up in Sheffield, Iowa, and he lost both his father and his older brother at a very young age. A youthful admirer of the Beatles and R.E.M., he didn’t take up guitar until he was 25. Four years later he had already released his debut (as Dick Prall Band), 1998’s Somewhere About Here, which the alt-country bible No Depression celebrated as a “track-by-track monster.” He became a linchpin of the Chicago scene, and his next album (as Starch Martins), 2001’s Dressing Up the Failure, won praise from the Chicago Sun-Times for achieving “a brand of rootsy power-pop that is smart, introspective, and filled with great hooks.” His solo debut, 2005’s Fizzlebuzzle, was “a box of chocolate for your ears” (Performing Songwriter), while 2007’s Weightless featured Glen Phillips on one of its “daring, original songs” (Chicago Tribune). Dickie’s self-titled 2015 debut album topped several year-end “Best Of” lists. The follow-up, 2019’s Minus Thieves, was “delightfully out of step” (Little Village) and co-produced by Pat Sarsone (Wilco). With Headful of Hiss, Prall says, “My goal is to write a song that I like and I’m confident enough to share with other people. And that’s really it.”