Blitzen Trapper takes inspiration from George Saunders book on forthcoming album

Acclaimed Portland, OR-based Blitzen Trapper will make their Yep Roc Records debut with the release of Holy Smokes Future Jokes on Sept. 11. The first track from the album is “Magical Thinking”

Led by existential questions about life and death, Holy Smokes Future Jokes finds frontman Eric Earley ruminating on the intermediate period between a person’s separate lives on earth, “and what it means to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth,” he explains.

Recorded at Long Play Recording in Portland, OR, the songs take inspiration from several works, notably George Saunders’ 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo, which led to Bardo Thodol, more commonly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

“I became obsessed with it, “Earley notes. “All the ideas contained in that book were speaking to me in a lot of different ways. The main theme that kept drawing me in when I was writing was what I call ‘cosmic humility,’ he adds. “It’s the idea that humanity is not the center of the universe or even the center of our own universe here on earth. We’re not the most important thing.”

Produced and engineered by Raymond Richards, who also contributes upright bass/keys/pedal steel, Blitzen Trapper were joined in-studio by Michael Blake (keys), Luke Price (fiddle), Ben Latimer (saxophone), Heather Woods Broderick (backing vocals), and Haley Johnsen (backing vocals).

Over a 20-year career and ten full-length albums, Eric Earley has written, recorded and toured extensively as Blitzen Trapper. 

Track listing:

1. Baptismal

2. Bardo’s Light (Ouija, Ouija)
3. Don’t Let Me Run
4. Magical Thinking
5. Masonic Temple Microdose #1
6. Requiem
7. Holy Smokes Future Jokes
8. Sons and Unwed Mothers
9. Dead Billie Jean
10. Hazy Morning