About this item

Blitzen Trapper is the Portland, Oregon-based experimental country and folk rock band, who in 2008 released Furr, its breakthrough album and label debut for Sub Pop. The record was met with universal acclaim, earning praise from the likes of The Guardian, Pitchfork, Paste, AV Club, and Rolling Stone, who in its four-star review called the album “an engaging album full of rootsy beauty.” The album would earn the no. 13 spot on Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Albums of 2008 later that year.

For the newly remastered and expanded deluxe edition of Furr, Blitzen Trapper have compiled over two LPs worth of material: the original album and twelve rare and previously unreleased tunes. The added songs are from the same recordings that become Furr, with the exception of the “Live at KCRW” tracks, which were recorded during the Furr tour. The songs “War is Placebo,” “Booksmart Baby,” and “Maybe Baby” appeared as limited-edition singles for Record Store Day in 2009 and 2011. This reissue also features new liner notes from Eric Earley reflecting on the album, as well as a track-by-track description of the bonus songs, and a Q&A with the stage and screen actor Rainn Wilson (of The Office fame).

“It's difficult to remember exactly where my head was in those days, recording Furr in a leaky, dilapidated, pre-boom Portland building, all but condemned, where the migrant workers congregated at the curb outside hoping to get picked up by desperate contractors, the dealers working the opposite corner, two blocks up the Burnside bridge running with pitched tents and sleeping bags all the way to the West Side Mission, the black river sliding by beneath. For those in the know enough at the time to have heard it when Sub Pop first released Furr in 2008, listeners had to have been underwhelmed by the hit and miss production, the furry overdriven vocals and perilous sounding dubs, all industry-standard production fare now. But the songs must have shone through the noise even then. The stand-out title track recorded on a nearly defunct cassette four-track in one take and mixed on a couple-hundred-dollar PC was almost an afterthought at the time, but its message was real enough: that life consists of change and growth, love and transformation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sleepytime In The Western World
2. Gold For Bread
3. Furr
4. God & Suicide
5. Fire & Fast Bullets
6. Saturday Nite
7. Black River Killer
8. Not Your Lover
9. Love U
10. War On Machines
11. Stolen Shoes & A Rifle
12. Echo/Always On/Easy Con
13. Lady On The Water
14. War Is Placebo **
15. Simple Tree *
16. Booksmart Baby **
17. Heroes Of Doubt *
18. Maybe Baby ^
19. Ballad Of Bird Love *
20. Hard Heart *
21. Other People's Money *
22. On My Way To The Bay *
23. Rent-a-Cop *
24. God & Suicide ^^
25. Furr ^^