BLITZEN TRAPPER SHARE NEW SINGLE “HELLO HALLELUJAH”
NEW ALBUM 100’S OF 1000’S, MILLIONS OF BILLIONS OUT MAY 17, 2024
Announce Additional U.S. Tour Dates
Photo by Jason Quigley.
Blitzen Trapper today shared their new single “Hello Hallelujah,” the driving, instantly memorable second single from their forthcoming album 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions. “In 2022 I kept a dream journal for about seven months in which I chronicled my nocturnal journeys; this song is the result. Each verse is from a different dream that I recorded during that period,” explains singer/songwriter Eric Earley of the song. “Like all dreams they present as riddles, both personal and cosmic, from teenage preachers to the devil himself, digital avatars and heaven’s janitor–and a big old Hello! to them all.” “Hello Hallelujah” follows the ruminative yet urgent lead single “Cosmic Backseat Education,” which saw press attention from Consequence (“a tune flooded with nostalgia, shared memories, and universal experiences”), and more. 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions will be released on May 17, 2024, via Yep Roc and is now available for pre-order.
Blitzen Trapper have also announced additional dates of their spring/summer headline tour, which begins with a hometown show at Portland, OR’s Aladdin Theatre. A current itinerary is below.
The enthralling 12-track 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions arrives nearly four years after 2020’s Holy Smokes Future Jokes, and sees Blitzen Trapper leaning into their psych rock-washed, classic songwriting roots to create one of the finest works of their career–nearly 20 years in. Inspired by Earley’s fascination with Buddhist texts and meditation (the title comes from a phrase that appears over and over in the Mahayana sutras), the album offers a captivating take on rebirth and transcendence, and the circularity of existence, navigating its way through the space beyond dreams and reality, beyond gods and mortals, beyond life and death. The songs are as sincere as they are surreal, rooted in rich character studies and deep reflection, and unfolding like a riddle-filled journey that asks many questions and offers no answers. The production–courtesy of Earley and recorded by guitarist Nathan Vanderpool at his rural Washington studio–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 the result is a gorgeous, sprawling collection 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.
“This whole project grew out of a box of old four-track tapes from the ’90s that I found recently,” Earley explains. “The tapes were full of songs I’d written and recorded back when I was 19 or 20 years old, and the sound and the spirit of those recordings got me excited to start writing music again, to go back to working the way I did when I was first starting out.”
Drawn to Buddhism around Holy Smokes Future Jokes, Earley found himself particularly fascinated with the religion’s teachings on the self and the freedom that comes with learning to let go of the artificial constructions that surround it. “Buddhism tells us that suffering comes from clinging to illusions, to rigid ideologies, to the idea of an individuated self,” he explains. “The doorway to ridding yourself of all that is meditation, and I found that a lot of these new songs started flowing very naturally from the state of consciousness I was getting myself into during those meditation sessions.”
At the same time Earley was learning to be present through meditation, he was also reconnecting with his past through those old four-track cassette tapes; in a mirroring microcosm of circularity, he found that the songs fit in with the newer ones he’d written, and he reworked, updated, and finished them with a clarity of perspective that comes with experience gained over time. The performances were loose and freewheeling, fully arranged and fleshed out but never overworked, and the carefree sense of spontaneity called to him. “What struck me the most was just how casual and off the cuff it all was,” Earley reflects. “I was working without any thoughts of the music industry, without any expectation of releasing or touring, so I was just capturing anything that popped into my head and moving on. There was a raw, time capsule quality to it, and it reminded me of why I fell in love with making music in the first place.”
100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions also includes backing vocals by Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats/Bonny Light Horseman) and Anna Tivel on the song “Planetarium” (Tivel also plays violin and sings throughout).
Blitzen Trapper on tour (new dates in bold):
5/17 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theatre
5/18 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
5/19 – Bellingham, WA – Shakedown
5/25 – Colorado Springs, CO – Meadowgrass Music Festival (TICKETS)
6/8 – Naches, WA – Chinook Fest
6/29 – Baker City, OR – Churchill School
6/30 – Boise, ID – Shrine Ballroom
7/2 – Avon, CO – Hot Summer Nights
7/3 – Crested Butte, CO – Center for the Arts
7/5 – Silverthorne, CO – Rainbow Park
7/6 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
7/7 – Grand Junction, CO – Mesa Theatre
7/9 – Park City, UT – Big Stars Bright Nights
7/12 Missoula, MT – Wilma Theatre
8/10 – Eugene, OR – Hult Center for the Performing Arts
8/11 – Ukiah, CA – Sundays in the Park
Blitzen Trapper: