Blitzen Trapper The Tailor

Inspired by the Buddhist sutras, Blitzen Trapper’s radiant new album, 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions, offers a captivating take on rebirth and transcendence, navigating its way through the space beyond dreams and reality, beyond gods and mortals, beyond life and death. The songs here are as sincere as they are surreal, rooted in rich character studies and deep reflection, and the production is intoxicating to match, blending lo-fi intimacy and trippy psychedelia into a mesmerizing swirl of analog and electronic sounds. Add it all together and you’ve got a gorgeous collection of stripped-down bedroom folk wrapped in lush layers of synthesizers and washed out electric guitars, a poignant, expansive exploration of perception and purpose that manages to look both forwards and backwards all at once.

Furr is Blitzen Trapper’s fourth studio album and first for Sub Pop. The deluxe edition is accompanied by 10 extra tracks from the same sessions that yielded Furr as well as a pair of songs laid down “Live At KCRW” during a tour in support of the LP. Seven of the tracks were previously unreleased while “War Is Placebo” and “Booksmart Baby” were issued as the band’s 2009 Record Store Day single and “Maybe Baby” was the A-side of their 2011 Record Store Day single. In addition, the deluxe set includes a Q&A with actor and BT supporter Rainn Wilson of The Office as well as new liner notes and a track-by-track description from lead singer-songwriter Eric Earley.

It was on September 23, 2008 that Blitzen Trapper, after putting out three albums on its own label, released its fourth full-length album, 'Furr', via Sub Pop. At that time, it was a record that captured exactly where the band’s frontman, Eric Earley, found himself, both literally and metaphorically, geographically and existentially. Not that the Portland-based musician actually remembers much about the creation of the record’s 13 intriguing, spellbinding songs. Or, more specifically, what its songs actually mean, either now or then. Instead, 'Furr', stands as a kind of tribute and elegy to the city that inspired it, but that, a decade later, no longer exists.