T.G. Olson is rarely far off from his next release. At this point, the Across Tundras frontman has settled into a steady rhythm where every few months, new songs will be recorded and presented for those who’ll have them as name-your-price downloads on Bandcamp. Sometimes — as in the case of his latest, Searching for the Ur-Plant — these DIY digital offerings will be complemented by limited, usually gorgeous and suitably organic-looking handmade CDRs pressed through the auspices of Olson‘s Electric Relics Records imprint. Sometimes not. Either way, the next thing always seems to be on the horizon. This has led to a remarkably productive few years and an increasingly complex narrative as to just what Olson‘s solo work encompasses in terms of style and craft.

Searching for the Ur-Plant was preceded this Spring by the full-length Foothills Before the Mountain (review here), which in turn followed a busy 2016 that produced La Violenza Naturale (review here), the From the Rocky Peaks b/w Servant to Blues single (discussed here) and the albums The Broken End of the Deal (review here) and Quicksilver Sound (discussed here), and the newer work follows a path distinct from its most immediate predecessor in a way that makes it more difficult to guess what Olson‘s next move might be. Other, of course, than (presumably) putting out another record. Because that’s kind of how he does. The question is how that record will be defined, and the reason that’s harder to determine as a result of the eight-song Searching for the Ur-Plant is because how much it strips down the approach taken on Foothills Before the Mountain.

On sheer sonic terms, the drone-folk arrangements of cuts like opener “On a High Like a Mountain” or the later “New Resistance Blues” aren’t necessarily new ground for Olson, but they represent a turn from what seemed to be more full-band-style fare his last time out toward a more distinctly “solo” feel. The story goes that the material was “handmade from scratch during one rainy week in October 2017. All songs were written new on the spot and recorded one by one until 33:32 minutes had been laid to bare to tape,” and having been completed on Oct. 11, Searching for the Ur-Plant found issue three days later: written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed, mastered and pressed by Olson himself.

At its most minimal, as on “Time Flies By and By,” the album carries that insular feel, but there’s also a good bit of reaching out done in these tracks, which from the early Paul Simon-style bounce of “The Old Brigade” to the later handclaps of the penultimate “Back on the Cross” seem to be in conversation with the human interaction at the root of Americana and folk traditionalism — the idea that songs were meant to be shared, sung by groups together, and so on.

A big difference is in percussion and the general lack thereof, and where Foothills Before the Mountain was less shy about including drums, those handclaps in “Back on the Cross” are about it as far as outward timekeeping goes. Elsewhere, the key seems to be in call and response vocals — a theme “On a High Like a Mountain” sets early and which continues through the repetition-minded, harmonica-laced “A Constant Companion,” “Time Flies By and By,” “The Old Brigade,” “Trying to Take it All In,” “New Resistance Blues,” and closer “The Ur-Plant” itself — Olson answering his vocal lines in delayed time over acoustic and electric guitar that free-flows between drift and ramble, wistful and playful.

Given the timeline in which Searching for the Ur-Plant was put together — written and tracked in the span of a week — that such consistencies would develop makes sense. Sometimes an idea just gets stuck in your head and needs to be exorcised, and despite that steady element, the songs remain varied in their intent, whether it’s the classic melancholy of “A Constant Companion” with its echoes of airy slide guitar or the soft and swaying guitar and harmonica execution of “The Ur-Plant,” which rounds out in less chorus-focused fashion than cuts like “On a High Like a Mountain” or “The Old Brigade,” but with an absolute center based in the realization of its pastoralia, humble even as it brims with creativity and understated nuance. This too is familiar ground from Olson, but brought to bear with a fascinating patience that would seem to fly in the face of the urgency with which Searching for the Ur-Plant was written and constructed.

It would’ve been easy, in other words, for Olson to come across as rushed on a record that took a week to make. But he doesn’t. Instead, he harvests an eight-song/33-minute collection that sidesteps expectation while remaining quintessentially his in terms of atmosphere and overarching style, which is a balance that, so well struck as it is, defines Searching for the Ur-Plant and serves as the basis for its ultimate success. In intent and manifestation, Olson‘s work would struggle to be any less pretentious than it is, but it remains propelled by a fierce and apparently unyielding creativity, and though this particular outing makes it harder to imagine where Olson might go next — whereas after Foothills Before the Mountain he seemed so primed to continue working toward one-man-band-style arrangements — that unpredictability, met head-on by such depth of songwriting, only becomes yet another asset working in Olson‘s favor.

The discography he’s built at this point is something truly special, and whether one meanders through it as through tall, pathless grasses, or follows step by step as each installment arrives, journey and destination alike seem to satisfy with a warmth all their own. Searching for the Ur-Plant winds up in a lonelier place than some of Olson‘s other offerings, but its sense of longing is resonant, beautiful, and honest. Clearly the search continues.

T.G. Olson, Searching for the Ur-Plant (2017)

Across Tundras on Thee Facebooks

Across Tundras/T.G. Olson on Bandcamp

The latest in a long string of solo full-lengths from founding Across Tundras guitarist/vocalist T.G. Olson, Foothills Before the Mountain nonetheless represents a landmark in the prolific South Dakota-based songwriter’s steadily-expanding catalog. Where recent outings like 2016’s La Violenza Naturale (review here), From the Rocky Peaks b/w Servant to Blues single (discussed here) and The Broken End of the Deal (review here) and Quicksilver Sound (discussed here) long-players found Olson — who indeed works alone on most of these offerings, playing any and all instruments and recording and releasing DIY as he does here — dug into drone-folk meditations, working to bring together acoustic country blues authenticity and a pervasive experimentalism of form, Foothills Before the Mountain leans decidedly in a different direction.

In some cases, with a song like new-album centerpiece “Dust on the Wayside,” the change is mainly the inclusion of louder and distorted electric guitar and drums laid on top of a similar acoustic foundation, but from the opening title-track onward, Olson seems willing to shirk off minimalism in a way that feels like a significant shift, bringing in flourish of keys, flute, percussion, etc., in mindful arrangements or even just working to play the acoustic and electric guitar off each other more directly, as in “Dying on the Silver Screen,” the second track. Songs vary in structure and overall feel, some darker, some brighter, but all are marked by a production that, while raw, allows for depth enough to mostly bury the vocals in the mix, and all carry the rhythmic ramble and sway that has become perhaps the defining hallmark of Olson‘s songwriting style — or certainly wound up no less so than his Dylanesque approach to singing.

Already noted, the placement of Olson‘s vocals in the mix throughout these tracks — low, always under the guitar, usually coated in reverb; somewhat obscured by the surrounding instrumentation — comes across as entirely purposeful. So much so that as the somewhat intense guitar line of “Foothills Before the Mountain” gives way to the roll of “Dying on the Silver Screen,” which is probably as close as Olson has come in a solo context to sounding like his main outfit, and the drearier march of “No More Debts to Pay,” which is the longest cut on Foothills Before the Mountain at 5:38, one can’t help but wonder if the music itself isn’t intended as an aural representation of landscape. That is, if the fullness of sound around him isn’t the mountain and his own presence is at the foothills, lower, looking up, the way his vocals seem to be echoing to the higher altitude of the guitar laid over.

This impression holds through the moody “A Stones Throw,” and while even at their barest, Olson‘s songs always carry a sense of space with them, that space has yet to spread as wide as it does on Foothills Before the Mountain, and if the tracks are meant to tie together in this way, the theme of being made small by surrounding nature would fit not only with the starkness of the prairie that Olson calls home but also his long-running allegiance to conveying a sense of place in both his solo material and with Across Tundras, the post-Earth Americana rumble of “A Stones Throw” only providing further evidence of intent as it distant-thunder-rumbles some impending threat into “Dust on the Wayside” as the gateway to the record’s second half.

The winding guitar line of the aforementioned centerpiece feels like a moment of arrival, with a steady build of guitar and handclap-easy punctuation of drums behind, but “simplicity” has proven to be a point of deception for Olson before and it is here again, as neither the elements at use nor their arrangement in the mix are at all haphazard or lacking consciousness behind them. Foothills Before the Mountain, while still sounding as organic as anything Olson has done as a solo artist in the last several years, brings forth an entirely different level of purpose in his songwriting.

I don’t think that’s overstating it, since the shift is one from doing the work of a one-man outfit to basically doing the work of a band. It’s a new mindset. The backing flute in “Leader of the New Death” might be an echo of the opening title cut, but the guitar, drums, drones, vocals and other elements at play around it seem geared toward conveying plurality, and likewise the rhythmic pickup of “What’s Mine,” which pushes the guitar even farther forward in an almost teasing verse progression, slow winding but over a straight-ahead percussive march. Olson‘s in there, a human presence in this wide-cast reach, but perhaps at his most vague, and the contrast between his obscurity and the clarity of definition in the acoustic and electric guitar, the bass and the drums is yet another example of the atmospheric crux of Foothills Before the Mountain: the evocation of landscape through soundscape and exploring where a person fits in that.

The Rocky Mountains are a humbling sight, to put it lightly, and with those foothills in mind it’s maybe not wrong to think of Olson as humbling himself before them in “What’s Mine,” ironic as that might make the title, but either way, the overarching impression of humanity as a small thing and nature as a big thing is the core of what the record presents conceptually, and it remains vigilant as side B heads toward its finale with “From Where You Came” and “Cut Losses.” The latter, the closer, is the shortest inclusion at 4:21 and it follows a tempo kick in “From Where You Came,” which boasts more stomp than just about anything before it, marked by an echoing snare, howling lead line and crisp strum. Also speedier than “What’s Mine” or “Leader of the new Death,” “Cut Losses” closes out instrumentally and comes fairly close to a genuine wash between its low and high ends, a current of drone playing out beneath energetic guitars and far-back percussion, tonal fuzz and acoustics melding together one last time against a backdrop of ghostly noise, culminating in a decisive but not necessarily cold finish.

When Olson first posted Foothills Before the Mountain — which, like all his releases, is available name-your-price from the Across Tundras and T.G. Olson combined Bandcamp page — I speculated that perhaps the fuller sound was itself the foothills and the mountain before it/them was the prospect of a new album from Across Tundras, whose last long-player, Electric Relics (review here), came out four years ago. Having dug further into Foothills Before the Mountain, I’m not sure I still feel that way. It’s certainly not impossible that’s Olson‘s intent, that this record should be a transition back into actually functioning as part of a complete-band lineup, but it seems more likely that the mountain in question here is creativity itself, and that, like all works in one way or another, these songs are telling the story of their own making even as their execution expands and in some ways redefines the scope of their creator’s aesthetic. I won’t guess at what Olson will do next, as to do so would simply be an opportunity to be wrong, but as much development as he’s shown as a singer-songwriter over the last several years, Foothills Before the Mountain feels like a crucial forward step for and from him, and whatever it leads to can only benefit from the lessons to be gleaned in its tracks.

T.G. Olson, Foothills Before the Mountain (2017)

Across Tundras on Thee Facebooks

Across Tundras/T.G. Olson on Bandcamp

T.G. Olson of Across Tundras steps away from the acoustic drone folk of his recent solo work with his latest album, Foothills Before the Mountain, and it doesn’t take long for one to notice the change. In addition to layers of acoustic and electric guitar, flutes, organ, vocals, tambourine, and so on, the opening title-track has a rhythmic heft and — wait for it — drums! It’s much more of a full-band vibe this time out, and it may indeed be that the mountain whose foothills we’re standing in is the much-awaited next offering from Across Tundras. If that’s the case, Olson is effectively drawing the line sonically in that direction here, as cuts like “Dying on the Silver Screen” and “What’s Mine” have that inimitable combination of swing and Americana ramble that has become the hallmark of Across Tundras‘ style.

I’m going to review the Foothills Before the Mountain hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks, so I won’t say much more about it than that for now. Olson, however, was kind enough to offer some comment on its making, and as ever, the album’s been released as a name-your-price download on the Across Tundras/T.G. Olson Bandcamp, and you can stream it and get the files at the bottom of this post.

Dig it:

T.G. Olson – Foothills Before the Mountain

New album of heavy sounds available for free/name your price download!

Played, recorded, and mixed by T.G. Olson in the months of December 2016 through March 2017. All instrumentation played by T.G. Olson.

Tanner Olson on Foothills Before the Mountain:

After finishing La Violenza Naturale and really all the recent solo albums which leaned towards the lighter folk/country side and followed a similar formula, I just knew wanted to do something drastically different. I actually wrote these songs and recorded the basic structure on organ first… which I had never done before. I had no idea what they would turn into from the outset. As I started recording and building the tracks the sound took shape and it was somewhere in between Across Tundras and T.G. Olson along with weird ’90s and other random influences. It’s a bit different than previous albums… but what the hell, Across Tundras and my solo stuff are all over the place musically as is… so I guess it keeps up with that unpredictable and changing nature.

I also thought it would be a good little tide over until the new Across Tundras album finally sees the light of day, which will hopefully be later this year. The songs are written and demoed, just waiting for everyone involved who are currently scattered around the country to come together and start playing again!

Tracklisting:
1. Foothills Before the Mountain 04:47
2. Dying on the Silver Screen 04:53
3. No More Debts to Pay 05:37
4. A Stones Throw 05:01
5. Dust on the Wayside 05:02
6. Leader of the New Death 05:02
7. What’s Mine 04:43
8. From Where You Came 04:55
9. Cut Losses 04:21

https://www.facebook.com/AcrossTundrasBand/
https://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/

T.G. Olson, Foothills Before the Mountain (2017)

“Is the insincerity killing you like it’s killing me?” asks Across Tundras frontman T.G. Olson in “Broken Trails,” the opening track of his latest solo release, the full-length La Violenza Naturale / The Natural Violence. Fair enough question for a Fall 2016 recording to ask, and as he encourages listeners to “Just keep pushin’ on” on the subsequent “Bearing Down,” the album’s perspective would seem to be cemented. Sonically, this latest outing follows Olson‘s by-now-well-established solo format of headphone-worthy drone-folk, less experimental than he sometimes can be — though the closing title-track spaces out plenty — but always holding to the oragnic undercurrent that’s a hallmark of all his work to-date.

As ever, it’s a name-your-price download available through the Across Tundras Bandcamp. Limited CD and tape releases are planned, with vinyl to follow as a conditional. Probably don’t need to say it, but I’ll be buying one of those CDs when they’re available, under the reasoning that: 1) such relentless creativity is worthy of direct support; 2) I know from past experience how much effort Olson puts into those packages; and 3) if enough people shell out, he’ll do a vinyl release, and I wouldn’t mind picking up one of those either. Will probably get a review going sometime in the next however long — hopefully before he puts out another record; one never knows when it will happen, only that it will — but for now, you can check out the release info and the stream of La Violenza Naturale / The Natural Violence below. Note that Ramble Hill Farm has moved from Tennessee to Nebraska.

As seen on the internet:

Limited to 33 Cassette and Gold CDR with hand bound lyric book coming soon. All monies made from downloads go towards getting this album pressed on vinyl. Thanks for listening and your support.

Played, recorded, and mixed by T.G. Olson in the Summer and Fall of 2016 @ Ramble Hill Farm, Plattsmouth, NE. Released November 2, 2016.

El Condor Pasa written by Simon & Garfunkel. Arrangement by T.G. Olson.

T.G. Olson : Guitars, Slides, Vocals, Words, Organ, Synths, Feedback, Drones

T.G. Olson, La Violenza Naturale / The Natural Violence tracklisting:
1. Broken Trails 04:39
2. Bearing Down 04:05
3. Lonely Bright Lights 03:54
4. Sights Set on Destruction 03:48
5. Imemine 03:41
6. To the Simples Times… 03:32
7. Welcome to Anywhere USA 04:16
8. El Condor Pasa 03:50
9. La Violenza Naturale 03:22

https://www.facebook.com/AcrossTundrasBand/
https://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/album/la-violenza-naturale-the-natural-violence

T.G. Olson, La Violenza Naturale / The Natural Violence (2016)

Some of T.G. Olson‘s work steers toward raw folk and blues, and some of it is flat-out drone experimentalism. With his new solo — and I do mean solo, since he performs everything on it, recorded and mixed — album, the Across Tundras guitarist/vocalist effectively brings the two sides together, resulting in a kind of ritualized soundscape Americana. There’s something lurking deep in the underlying hum of “Blisslessness,” but a steady acoustic strum there and in the earlier “Hope Slivers” that keeps the material grounded, leaving Olson‘s vocals free to become part of the ether, which they do, contributing either far-back lyrics or ambient melody, as on the aforementioned “Blisslessness,” the longest track on the album by far at over eight minutes.

The album just got released — like, an hour ago — so obviously there’s no word yet on whether or not Olson will put together a physical version. In the meantime, it’s available via the Across Tundras/T.G. Olson Bandcamp page in name-your-price fashion.

I know I’ve said this before, but if you don’t already keep up with that Bandcamp page, you should. Aside from being dirt cheap on the whole, Olson‘s physical releases are almost always gorgeously hand-made and come with extra tracks, individualized package designs, etc.

Still waiting on news one of these days about the next Across Tundras LP, but in the meantime, The Broken End of the Deal is Olson‘s second solo offering of the year behind January’s Quicksilver Sound (discussed here), so there’s been plenty to chew on:

The Broken End of the Deal by T.G. Olson

Across Tundras & T.G. Olson just released The Broken End of the Deal by T.G. Olson.

1. Tough Break 05:11
2. Hope Slivers 03:34
3. Green Sahara 01:21
4. Blisslessness 08:15
5. Hum 00:54
6. Distilled to Nothing 03:14
7. Always Turning Away 01:12
8. Walk the Lonesome Valley 04:28

All instruments and soundscapes were improvised, played, distorted, recorded, and mixed by T.G. Olson in the Spring of 2016.

New Sounds of the Past. Old Sounds for the Future.

http://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/album/the-broken-end-of-the-deal
https://www.facebook.com/ACROSS-TUNDRAS-67862323857/

T.G. Olson, The Broken End of the Deal (2016)

I recently made a purchase from the Across Tundras and T.G. Olson Bandcamp page, regular perusing of which I’ve advocated on any number of occasions. Downloads are free, but physical pressings are rarer, limited and usually at least to some degree handmade. While I’ll readily admit that it took multiple exposures for the band’s and for Olson‘s project to sink in, his/theirs is work I’ve come to much admire the last half-decade or so, and after putting in an order for a CD of Olson‘s latest solo outing, The Boom and Bust, I was thrilled to find it arrive in a hand-assembled book with special labels and a personal touch very much suited to the music. His The Rough Embrace (review here) CD is also gorgeously and earthly adorned, wrapped in twine with a screenprinted cloth case limited to 33 copies.

Across Tundras haven’t announced plans to press up any physical versions of their brand new, previously-unannounced EP, but it’s out now digitally and contains two new tracks, “When We Were all One” and “No Roads in any Direction,” a redux of “Fixin'” from Olson‘s 2011 Muddy Water Dredge Company solo outing, and a cover of “Shine for You” by Brianna Lea Pruett‘s 2013 album, Gypsy Bells. Joining Olson on the self-recorded outing are vocalist Shannon Murphy and drummer Brandon Freeman. The first two will reportedly feature on the next Across Tundras full-length as well, so whether you’re listening for a preview of that or what, they’re worth your time on multiple levels.

Interested to know what “last jam sessions” means, if perhaps Olson has rambled on from Ramble Hill Farm in Cottontown, Tennessee, or if he’s just speaking about the season changing, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough either way. At least when we see where whatever he does next is tracked.

Info follows:

ACROSS TUNDRAS – New Sounds ~ 11/16/2015

AT “Home Free”

Late Summertime & Fall 2015 last jam sessions @ Ramble Hill Farm in Cottontown, TN. Recorded by T.G. Olson and Shannon Murphy. Mixed and no Masters by T.G. Olson. Includes a couple demos of new tracks slated to appear on the next Across Tundras album, an oldie remade, and a cover/tribute to Brianna Lea Pruett.

Thanks for listening.

Released November 17, 2015.

T.G. Olson : Guitars, Vocals, Bass, Organ
Shannon Murphy : Vocals
Brandon Freeman : Drums

All new cassette releases limited to 33 copies and 2 for 1 vinyl sale is still going on over at the Bandcamp site along with free/name your price downloads as always! Thanks for the support everyone.

https://www.facebook.com/ACROSS-TUNDRAS-67862323857/
http://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/

Across Tundras, Home Free (2015)

Vocalist/guitarist Tanner “T.G.” Olson of Across Tundras initially self-released The Rough Embrace (review here) last year as a name-your-price download, and the newer vinyl edition of the album — pressed to 150 copies in a swampy kind of green and black swirl on a 150g platter with an obscure, almost runic, front cover and skull-and-hourglass memento mori on back — has a very complementary feel. For example, the record itself doesn’t come with a tracklist. And while one might make out the words “Rough” and “Embrace” on the top and bottom lines of the front cover, there’s little else by which it might be identified, unless you count the title etched into the part of each side after the music has ended.

That’s also how one tells the difference initially between the five-song side A, which begins with “Fool’s Gold Miner,” and the four-song side B, which begins with the moody “Uncharted Depths.” Clearly the intent is that if they want it bad enough, the listener — who no doubt bought the thing off Bandcamp to start with — should go there to get the appropriate information on the recording, mixing, mastering, tracklisting, lyrics, etc., and in reality that’s not a problem. It does give The Rough Embrace something of an artifact feel, though, which is fitting with the name of Olson‘s label, Electric Relics — also the title of the last Across Tundras album (review here), the gatefold 12″ version of which was the first release for the imprint — and also suits the music itself, which is nothing if not classically minded.

Like most folk singers of the last half-century, Olson has had moments in his work where he is almost singularly indebted to Bob Dylan, but neither he nor Woody Guthrie nor Neil Young are necessarily defining influences, and even as “Wars of Bygone Days” marches in tune to the established notions of a protest song — right down to lyrical plays on “manifest destiny” and the notion of using Christian ideals to justify sin (i.e. murder in war) — it retains an experimentalist feel. That, taken in balance with the intimacy of the performance throughout — Olson plays guitar, organ, piano, percussion, does all the vocals, and also recorded, mixed and handled the artwork himself, while Mikey Allred (also of Across Tundras) mastered — is what comes to make The Rough Embrace such an engaging listen despite a superficial simplicity.

Heard on one level, its guy-and-guitar singer-songwriterism seems easy enough to grasp, but that just can’t account for the intertwined echoing lead lines of the sweetly wistful “Sleeper Lines” or the psych-folk vibe of “To Hell You Ride,” which follows and shifts into bouts of more fervent strumming in its chorus. Olson, who has done plenty of balladeering the last several years while also retaining a penchant for droning out on offerings like 2015’s The Wandering Protagonist (review here) and 2013’s sprawling The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar (review here), keeps more to the former on The Rough Embrace, but even in the subdued nostalgia of “Providence Gone Again,” the underlying organ provides a constancy of tone to complement the guitar that speaks to the other impulse.

It’s range, either way, and that range continues to expand on side B as “Uncharted Depths” gives the album’s shorter second half a quiet launch, lyrics held back until about the halfway mark and then more spoken than sung, the electric guitar ramble very much at the fore. A darker atmosphere is set, but “Out on the Fringes” has a more hopeful spirit, and no doubt it’s on purpose that the one arrives paired with the other. What they have in common is being resoundingly immersive, such that while just seven minutes between them, the more lyrical focus of the penultimate “Birdsong Chorus at Dawn” arrives almost as a surprise.

Would be wrong to call it jarring, but Olson brings the vocals forward again and recalls side A memorable cuts like “Fool’s Gold Miner” and “Wars of Bygone Days” to give side B a landing point; it’s something that, listening to the digital version one might not fully appreciate, but that the vinyl really brings out. That song is a highlight, and “Something Left to Save,” which follows, is very much a closer, a goodbye song that finds Olson singing along to himself, adding a last bit of drums and finishing with a rising drone and sample of what sounds like waves that provides a concluding wash that’s all the more gorgeous for being unanticipated. It’s one more moment that, though Olson‘s work is fluid to the point of having its own current system, is worth taking specific note of, since ultimately its from these things that the depths of his atmospherics are cast. The Rough Embrace offers plenty of those moments, but it’s the whole experience of how they’re strung together that makes it really shine.

T.G. Olson, The Rough Embrace (2014/2015)

Across Tundras on Thee Facebooks

The Rough Embrace on Bandcamp

It hasn’t quite been a full year since multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tanner Olson of Across Tundras released his last solo full-length under the T.G. Olson banner. That outing, The Rough Embrace (review here; vinyl review pending), has continued to earn spins even as Olson followed it up with a companion shorter release, The Wandering Protagonist (review here). Prolific as ever, the singer-songwriter unveils today his latest offering, The Boom and Bust.

A folk singer at heart, Olson continues to refine his process melding simple and traditional structures with complexity either of layering or experimental elements. Like everything he does, The Boom and Bust has been released as a name-your-price download via the Across Tundras Bandcamp, and as word has been bandied around about new Across Tundras on the way as well, I can’t help but wonder if the two albums won’t make for some kind of complement, be it thematically, musically (as they kind of would be anyway, I’ll grant) or otherwise. We won’t know until that one shows up, but it’s all the more worth keeping an eye out.

The Boom and Bust will reportedly also be released on vinyl sometime down the line. For now, you’ll find the Bandcamp stream under the album art and info below:

Recorded and mixed on and off, Summer 2014 through Summer 2015 by T.G. Olson @ The Trailer House and Ramble Hill Farm in the Nashville Dome, Tennessee. Kindly mastered by Mikey Allred @ Dark Art Audio.

Released 15 July 2015

TGO: Acoustic, Electric, and Slide Guitars; Vocals, Drones, Organ, Percussion, Harmonica, Words

Recorded live with minimal editing, added effects, or processing.

1. Lethargy of Time 03:31
2. Will of Stone 04:34
3. The Unsettled Last Score 03:46
4. The Day Truth Wins 03:58
5. American Frontier Is Closed 03:47
6. Colorful Colorado 04:29
7. Heavy On Your Head 03:22
8. Riverine 03:31
9. Sharp Like a Dagger 03:35
10. Agents of the Road 03:13

http://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/album/the-boom-bust
https://www.facebook.com/pages/ACROSS-TUNDRAS/67862323857

T.G. Olson, The Boom and Bust (2015)