New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) Before 2011's 'King of In Between' Garland Jeffreys went thirteen years without releasing any new music in the US. Since that album, which top critics like Ann Powers, Robert Christgau and Ken Tucker hailed as among the best of his career, Jeffreys has performed on Letterman, toured the US and
Europe extensively, and written over 50 new songs, some of which will appear on his new album 'Truth Serum,' a stripped down, politically charged cri de coeur to be released
September 17 on
Luna Park Records with marketing and distribution through Thirty Tigers. A full national tour will follow, Garland's biggest in 20 years. It will kick off
September 23 at Rockwood 2 in NYC and include performances at McCabe's in
Santa Monica and more.
'Truth Serum' was produced by Jeffreys with production support by
James Maddock and Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm), with backing from some of NYC's top session musicians: Steve Jordan (drums), Zev Katz (bass), Duke Levine (guitar) and Brian Mitchell (keys). Impressionistic and brimming with urgency, the album's ten songs grew out of material culled from over 75 unlabeled, cassette tapes - Jeffreys' preferred platform for capturing inspiration. "The obsessions, the imagery, the things I care most about were all on those cassettes," he says. "I love their compression and ragged feel."
Though Jeffreys has been releasing music since the 1960s, and recently celebrated his 70th birthday, he has never been busier or more prolific. "This record is a kind of Rorschach of me, the boiled down essence of where I am today," he explains. "I'm secretly longing for brotherhood, harmony, justice, and discouraged by how rarely that happens in the world."
Jeffreys, "one of NYC's rock-n-roll treasures" (New Yorker), funded 'Truth Serum' almost entirely with the help of his fans via PledgeMusic.
'Truth Serum' Tracklist:
1. Truth Serum
2. Any Rain
3. It's What I Am
4. Dragons To Slay
5. Is This The Real World
6. Ship Of Fools
7. Collide The Generations
8. Far Far Away
9. Colorblind Love
10. Revolution Of The Mind
Garland Jeffreys Tour Dates:
9.23 Rockwood 2 - New York, NY
9.25 World Café - Philadelphia, PA
9.26 The Hamilton Live - Washington, DC
9.28 Iron Horse
Music Hall - Northampton, MA
9.29 Club Passim - Cambridge, MA
11.1 Valdez Civic Center - Valdez, AK
11.2
Taproot Public House Anchorage, AK
11.5 The Triple Door - Seattle, WA
11.6 Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
11.8 Freight & Salvage - Berkeley, CA
11.9 McCabe's -
Santa Monica, CA
11.11 The Mint - Los Angeles, CA
11.15 Cedar Cultural Center - Minneapolis, MN
11.16 Old Town School of Folk - Chicago, IL
