Blitzen Trapper, the teeming Portland, Oregon-based musical clan, are pleased to announce the impending arrival of their third brood of offspring—songs, that is—in the shape of an album called Wild Mountain Nation, to be self-released on June 12th. From outerspace to down at the farm, campfire singalong to dystopic atonal deconstruction, Wild Mountain Nation presents a raucous and varied constellation of favorite souvenirs from the Trapper’s musical adventures. Brought forth in a spasm of creative mania, Nation is rough-hewn but lush, crackling (sometimes audibly) with a weird and lucid energy. The albumwas recorded and arranged by the band themselves, using a dizzying variety of techniques and media, including a secret process learned from friendly extraterrestrials. As always, though, the group's trusty four-track was used to capture the "soul", "essence", or "kernel" of each song, which was then buried in a rich humus of articulation, embellishment, and attenuation, so that after the summer a nutritious, colorful variety of fresh music was drooping from the vine (so to speak). A rich harvest: dusty bones, sunrise, Philip K Dick, Guernica, barley wine, sycamore or doug fir, snowflake, Sally Mack's School of Dance, Scooby-Doo, bigfoot.
This litter will join BT’s other children in what is now becoming a large family, remarkable for its beauty (scruffiness notwithstanding) and vibrant good health. Prior broods include an eponymous debut and 2005’s Field Rexx, to say nothing of the unending stream of material released unmastered and with no fanfare direct to the web.
The Trapper’s six members began playing together long, long ago, in a time of great rains. At first, though, it was only by happenstance: two boys accidentally beating out a rhythm together on the slide at the neighborhood playground; adolescent dreams coinciding, colliding with guitars; the song of the woodtit and sparrow recorded and embellished with banjo for a science fair; a chance meeting on a haunted mountain in the Deep South. None of the group yet realized that they were Blitzen Trapper, nor would they for many years. But they recognized something in each other—Love? Hair?—that inexorably drew them together. By early 2000, this mysterious force had virtually bound the clan as one.
From that year forth they have likewise delighted audiences of all ages, socioeconomic groups, and species with their unique musical blend of Zane Grey, darjeeling tea, candy-wrappers, and Choose Your Own Adventure. Though you may mistake them sometimes for can collectors or immigrant day labor, the group love you very, very much, and promise to slave away at the office day and night to keep Wild Mountain Nation and the other kids well-fed and tastefully attired. They will take only imitation fur, and will be involved dads and members of the community. They will buy you diamonds. They will do everything like they mean it.
