Mouth Painter announces new album Tropicale Moon, shares first single
Mouth Painter is Barry Walker, Jr. (guitar, pedal steel, vocals), Valerie Osterberg (flute, saw, percussion, effects, vocals), and Jason Willmon (bass). Today they announce their third album, Tropicale Moon, and share the first single, “A Yardin’ I Once Went.” Tropicale Moon is out September 3 on Arrowhawk Records (digital/cassette) and Feeding Tube / Cardinal Fuzz Records (LP). Pre-order here.
Of the song, Barry Walker, Jr. says:
One of our close friends with a storied past would describe instances of getting in fights and “yarding” people, which to him meant leaping full force toward someone and tackling them. Valerie and I have adopted the term for when we work in the yard. We’re lucky to have a fairly big yard for living in a city (Portland, OR).
Valerie is an avid creator of spaces (both musically and literally). Her heart desires to have one of every plant on earth. She has painted the yard in hundreds of flowers (roses, torch flowers, love in a mist, bachelor buttons, calendula, zinnias, bleeding heart, artichokes, snapdragons, candied tuft, euphorbia, pansies, begonias, salvia, hebes, cosmos, dahlias, asparagus), shrubs (azaleas, rhododendrons, beauty berry, twin berry, ocean spray), and trees (weeping willow, banana, fanning palm, dogwood, plum, peach, fig, monkey puzzle, pines, hemlock, spruce, dogwood, magnolia, maples). Depending on which path you choose, you may end up in the Tiki Lounge, RV park, Zen Garden, Aloha beach, or the Playground!
Barry prefers toiling in a tidy garden where food has room to grow; food such as tomatoes, kale, chard, okra, several varieties of squash, lettuce, eggplant, pumpkins, onions, garlic, peppers, corn, etc.
Lots of greenery, and lots of work!
This song borrows that term “yardin” and celebrates growing plants, but also incorporates the more existential thoughts that creep in when you’re laboring (or resting during a “hoe lean”). Death is part of the life cycle, and it’s easy enough to appreciate that as a gardener. But you have to toe the line with the knowledge of being part of that cycle yourself.
Inspired by the sounds of nature, the geologic continuum, and the likes of Merle Haggard, the Grateful Dead, Inoyamaland, Don Cherry, new age tapes, etc., Tropicale Moon is the result of a year’s worth of home recording at Valerie and Barry’s house.
“Events that we observe can be far removed from our understanding of their cause. What happened yesterday and what happens a hundred million years from now are threads in same rope. Looking up at the stars, we consider our smallness, but at the same time experience such largeness within our hearts and minds. These paradoxes both confound and comfort us. On this record, themes of struggle, getting swindled, global climate change, a nuclear future, delusion, and death appear alongside themes of love, resistance, pressing on, gardening, delicate truces, and tropical space travel.”
Pre-order Tropicale Moon on Bandcamp.
