Singer/songwriter Ryan Traster’s upcoming release Low Mirada will arrive digitally and on vinyl on September 30th from the Los Angeles-based Blackbird Record Label. It was recorded by Kris Johnson at Flowers Studio in Minneapolis, MN, and for the most part was recorded with a live band, adding “urgent velocity” in comparison with Traster’s other records. It also features keyboards and mixing by Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Pinegrove).
The songs on Low Mirada were written in different regions of the country, spanning the Pacific Northwest, Southern California, Nashville, Minneapolis, and the Netherlands.
Traster comments:
There is a lot of geography on the album and I think bits and pieces of those places can be heard throughout. There are a lot of miles in these songs, a lot of different vibrations that we tried to get to cut through the sound. With the places came a lot of interesting and incredible people and their stories. I tried to capture a bit of everything I heard and saw on the outskirts of those places, just a little ways off the beaten path. This is an album about living life on the fringe. It may not be glamorous, but there is a hell of a lot of truth out there.
The new album is one that has “a reason, a place, a tradition”. Based in Joshua Tree, Traster is concerned with “pinning down the milieu of his home and situating his stories in the rich lineage of Cosmic American music pioneers”, like The Byrds, Crazy Horse, and Gram Parsons.
