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BLITZEN TRAPPER

Blitzen Trapper

100's Of 1000's, Millions Of Billions

    Inspired by the Buddhist sutras, Blitzen Trapper's radiant new album, 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions, offers a captivating take on rebirth and transcendence, navigating its way through the space beyond dreams and reality, beyond gods and mortals, beyond life and death.

    The songs here are as sincere as they are surreal, rooted in rich character studies and deep reflection, and the production is intoxicating to match, blending lo- fi intimacy and trippy psychedelia into a mesmerizing swirl of analog and electronic sounds. Add it all together and you've got a gorgeous collection of stripped-down bedroom folk wrapped in lush layers of synthesizers and washed out electric guitars, a poignant, expansive exploration of perception and purpose that manages to look both forwards and backwards all at once.

    Launched roughly two decades ago in Portland, OR, Blitzen Trapper broke out internationally with 2008's Furr, which cemented their status at the forefront of the modern indie folk revival. Rolling Stone hailed the band's "hazy, psychedelic Americana," while NPR praised their "explosive live performances and infectious roots- rock swagger." Dates with Fleet Foxes, Wilco, and Dawes followed, as did festival appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk, and Coachella, among others. The band would go on to release six more similarly lauded studio albums, culminating with 2020's Holy Smokes Future Jokes, which Mojo proclaimed "sound[s] like the Beatles at Big Pink."

    TRACK LISTING

    Ain't Got Time To Fight
    Dead God Of The Green Arising
    Cosmic Backseat Education
    Hesher In The Rain
    Cheap Fantastical Takedown
    So Divine
    Planetarium
    Hello Hallelujah
    Long Game
    View From Jackson Hill
    Upon The Chain
    Bear's Head
    At The Cove

    Blitzen Trapper

    Wild And Reckless

      Earlier this year, the Portland, Oregon-based Blitzen Trapper accomplished a unique feat for a rock band who has been releasing albums and touring for the better part of two decades: a staged musical titled Wild & Reckless that ran for 28 performances at Portland Center Stage. The bands new album of the same title, that was born from the stage production, is somewhat of a companion to their 2008 breakthrough album Furr.

      The album Wild & Reckless was born from the stage production that the band spent the better part of a year producing. The half musical, half rock-opera dealt with heroin abuse, desperation, true love and western power structures. The story evoked a bygone era of Portland with this sci-fi love story, featuring a rock-and-roll score that paired unreleased songs with favorites from the band’s catalog. Following the success of the production, the band took 7 original songs from the production and developed the theme further into the 12 songs that comprise the new album Wild & Reckless. Frontman Eric Earley also sees the record as a companion and extention of their 2008 album Furr. "Wild and Reckless is something like a cross-eyed stepchild to Furr, in that it chronicles the darker dystopian stories of rural and suburban west coast death-drive via a riffing psychedelic landscape. Ten years after Furr with all its talk of murder and the end of the western world, it seems there's more to tell." Blitzen Trapper is Eric Earley (songwriter/singer), Erik Menteer (guitar, keyboard), Brian Adrian Koch (drums, vocals), Michael Van Pelt (bass) and Marty Marquis (keyboard, vocals). Wild & Reckless was produced by Eric Earley and Michael Van Pelt and was recorded by Gregg Williams at The Trench, in Portland, Oregon. It was mixed by James Brown (Foo Fighters, Kings Of Leon, Blitzen Trapper's All Across This Land) at The Union.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Rebel
      2. Wild And Reckless
      3. Forever Pt. 1
      4. Joanna
      5. No Man's Land
      6. Stolen Hearts
      7. Dance With Me
      8. Love Live On
      9. When I'm Dying
      10. Baby Won't You Turn Me On
      11. Forever Pt. 2
      12. Wind Don't Always Blow

      Blitzen Trapper

      All Across This Land

        Blitzen Trapper has built a solid reputation as a band unafraid to take chances. Incorporating a vast array of influences, they have released albums that touch on indie folk/rock, roots, art rock, alt country, psychedelia and pop, while maintaining a sound that is distinctly Blitzen Trapper. On their new studio effort, the group’s years of experimentation and experience have come full circle, culminating in their strongest, most cohesive work to date with the career milestone, All Across This Land.

        All Across This Land once again confirms that Blitzen Trapper possess the unique ability to create thoughtful, melodic, finely crafted songs on one hand, and deliver full throttle, infectious rock on the other. From the opening riff of the title track, this is quite evident as it unfolds into a flurry of guitars, bass and drums. The band also eases back, on the semi-autobiographical “Mystery and Wonder”, for example. The track’s reflective and nostalgic tone was inspired by the band’s beginnings, the chemistry that develops over time and the music they have created though the years.

        While the album features some of Earley’s finest songs to date, the rest of his bandmate’s performances – Eric Menteer (guitar), Michael Van Pelt (bass), Marty Marquis (guitar/keys), Brian Adrian Koch (drums) – elevate each track thus taking Blitzen Trapper to their highest artistic peak yet.

        Blitzen Trapper

        VII

          Blitzen Trapper’s seventh studio album is full of the vivid folk-rock-campfire-tales that frontman Eric Earley is so well known for. VII opens with "Feel The Chill," a southern adventure complete with a woman in her underwear, deer hunting, and of course drowning at the local bar. Earley takes us down a crooked bend so dark and gloomy you can smell the heat and feel the humidity oppress you. "Each song starts from a small place, a headwater-like remembrance and then widens into a song. For instance, that old wreck of a shack buried in evergreen and murky darkness at the bend in the road up on Jackson Hill where we used to drink, never failed to give me a chill driving by in the old Impala for its implacable mystery," Earley notes.

          "Drive On Up" is a soulful, almost bluesy rendition of small town tales of quirkiness. "It seems you're always driving on up to something." Earley amuses, "into the mountains to see a girlfriend above the reservoir where she lives in a single wide with her mom and a cougar stalks us at fifty yards through the brush, she says to bang sticks but never look it in the eye." VII moves effortlessly from track to track, allowing Earley to paint the colorful pictures that play in our head while singing along. "...there are those songs I keep writing over and over again, "Ever Loved Once" with all its regrets and tragic lost love, "Don't be a Stranger" its hopeful cousin but they all still point to the same worn out place in the heart of old E. Earley. And hey, we all have that place, that worn spot on the heart like the chew canister circle on the back pocket of blue jeans, or that one shred in the green felt of the table where you ground the stick in too hard... May these songs minister in ways mysterious and eternal, or at least maybe make you shake a hip."


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