| The Walkabouts – Travels in the Dustland (2011) |
Genre: Folk Rock / Melodramatic Popular Song / Turntablism
Location: Seattle, Washington, U.S.
The follow-up to 2005’s “Acetylene,” “Travels in the Dustland” is the band´s first new album in six years and the priority release in Glitterhouse’s catalogue for the upcoming fall/winter season.In November of 2010 The Walkabouts entered a studio in Seattle to begin work on the album. The final details were wrapped up in June of 2011. The same crew that made Acetylene and most of the other Walkabouts albums, made this one: Carla Torgerson, Terri Moeller, Michael Wells, Glenn Slater and Chris Eckman. Paul Austin formerly of Willard Grant Conspiracy and Transmissionary Six joined us, providing new angles and possibilities. “Travels in the Dustland” is a collection of interconnected songs. It is a song cycle. The Dustland is a made up place but it looks acts like a real place. Whiledifferent characters come and go throughout the songs, the most important character is the landscape itself: Its vastness, its endless skies, its scarcity,its hidden opportunities and its rugged dead-end roads.
Record Label: Glitterhouse Records (http://label.glitterhouse.com/upcoming.php?show=144)
Tracklist:
01. My Diviner
02. The Dustlands
03. Soul Thief
04. They Are Not Like Us
05. Thin of the Air
06. Rainmaker Blues
07. Every River Will Burn
08. No Rhyme, No Reason
09. Wild Sky Revelry
10. Long Drive in a Slow Machine
11. Horizon Fade
Release Date: 10/21/2011 ·
Format: CD / 2-LP ·
Catalog-No: GRCD/LP 731
Website: http://www.thewalkabouts.com/organization.html
It took us a long time to make this new album. Six years in fact. It wasn’t that we stopped being a band during that time, it was just that other things took over. Life took over, and that is a hard thing to control and slow down.
But there was also something else. After “Acetylene” we knew that when we did another album it needed to follow a different trail. It needed to have its own idea, its own purpose, something luminous and worth fighting for.
That idea was elusive. But one hot, dust-blown afternoon, as I sat in the back of a rusty Jeep, as it bumped and ground itself across a desert track, somewhere deep in the Sahara, these words came to me: “Travels in the Dustland.” And after I returned home, I remembered those words, and from them came songs, and from those songs came rehearsals and recording sessions.
In November of 2010 The Walkabouts entered a studio in Seattle to begin work on the album. The final details were wrapped up in June of 2011. The same crew that made Acetylene and most of the other Walkabouts albums, made this one: Carla Torgerson, Terri Moeller, Michael Wells, Glenn Slater and myself. Paul Austin formerly of Willard Grant Conspiracy and Transmissionary Six joined us, providing new angles and possibilities.
“Travels in the Dustland” is a collection of interconnected songs. It is a song cycle. The Dustland is a made up place but it looks acts like a real place. While different characters come and go throughout the songs, the most important character is the landscape itself: Its vastness, its endless skies, its scarcity, its hidden opportunities and its rugged dead-end roads.
The Dustland seems to be somewhere in America. It is an America with a future as cracked and worn as a dry-lake bed. It is a land where hollow ideas win-out and hopes and dreams are slowly slipping back into the wilds from which they began.
But more than being an idea, this album is obviously a collection of music. We wanted songs and sounds as wide-open as the landscape that inspired us. We wanted an album with a mood of experimentation but also an album that played to our strengths as musicians.
It was a hard, slow process, a balancing act, but we are proud of the results.
Thanks for listening and thanks for traveling with us.
Band member history:
| Name: | Playing: | Member period: |
|---|---|---|
| Chris Eckman | vocals, guitar, piano | 1984–present |
| Carla Torgerson | vocals, guitar | 1984–present |
| Michael Wells | bass | 1985–1996; 2003–present |
| Glenn Slater | keyboards, piano | 1989–present |
| Terri Moeller | drums, percussion | 1991–1999; 2001–present |
| Paul Austin | guitar | 2011–present |
| Grant Eckman | drums, percussion | 1984–1991 |
| Curt Eckman | bass | 1984–1985 |
| Bruce Wirth | violin, lap steel, mandolin, vibes | 1991–1994 |
| John Baker Saunders | bass | 1996–1999 |
| Fred Chalenor | bass | 1999 |
| Joe Skyward | bass | 2000 |
| Brian Young | drums | 2000 |
Walkabouts Dustland Recording Session Nov. 2010
Discography:
EP:
- 22 Disasters (1985 - Necessity - Terry Date & Walkabouts)
- Linda Evans/Cyclone (1987 - Necessity - Bruce Calder, Tony Croes & Walkabouts)
Album studio:
- See Beautiful Rattlesnake Gardens (1988 - PopLlama - Tony Kroes, Ed Brooks & Walkabouts)
- Cataract (1989 - Sub Pop - Tony Kroes, Ed Brooks & Walkabouts)
- Rag & Bone (1990 - Sub Pop - Tony Kroes, Ed Brooks & Walkabouts)
- Scavenger (1991 - Sub Pop - Gary Smith
- New West Motel (1993 - Sub Pop - Ed Brooks & Walkabouts)
- Satisfied Mind (1993 - Sub Pop - Kevin Suggs & Walkabouts)
- Setting the Woods on Fire (1994 - Sub Pop - Ed Brooks & Walkabouts)
- Devil's Road (1996 - |Virgin, Germany - Victor Van Vugt)
- Nighttown (1997 - Virgin, Germany - Victor Van Vugt)
- Trail of Stars (1999 - Glitterhouse - Phill Brown & Walkabouts)
- Train Leaves At Eight (2000 - Glitterhouse - Kevin Suggs & Walkabouts)
- Ended Up A Stranger (2001 - Glitterhouse - Larry Crane, Phill Brown & Walkabouts)
- Shimmers (album) (2003 - Glitterhouse - "Best of" collection)
- Acetylene (2005 - Glitterhouse - Tucker Martine & Walkabouts)
- Travels In The Dustland (2011 - Glitterhouse - Announced to be released on 21 October 2011)