LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ Strange Midge Music) - Picture a bearded gypsy, a dead-eyed
Ice Queen reigning over blanketed bodies strewn across an endless field, and gunslingers armed with potatoes. All of them wander and list, ghostlike, in swirls of guitar, drums, cello, glockenspiel, whistle, and musical saw. This is the alternate musical universe of the Minnesota band
Captain Yonder, whose new CD, Good-Bye, Woland! is set for release on May 2 on Strange Midge Music.?
Captain Yonder recorded Good-Bye, Woland!, at Wavelab Studios in Tucson, with Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Neko Case, Robyn Hitchcock, Iron & Wine) producing. Captain Yonder's singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and earthly guide, Ryan Pfeiffer, weaves an ethereal tapestry of haunting gothic-folk and Americana melodies with contemporary lyrics and a multitude of indefinable elements that MOJO called, "hallucinatory-country that's woozy and creepy," in its four-star review of Captain Yonder's last outing, Mad Country Love Songs.
Pfeiffer is an enigmatic storyteller, a former truck driver, philosopher, maritime cadet, orchestral musician, and lawyer whose otherworldly music emanates from a rich and often bizarre catalogue of experiences, including a childhood near-drowning, bearing witness to a tragic collision, a felony, and a life-changing encounter with an old musician in a Wyoming bar.
His words and phrasing drip with emotional devastation on the lead track, "In Anatolia," while Blue Velvet hallucinations on "Ode to a Trucker No 9," take a chilling turn, and Death's seductive whisper, the voice of a departed lover, haunts on "The Black Dress." Pfeiffer's wry wit and sense of the absurd is on display here as well with references to flying horses, cool cats, saloon dogs and a young woman's "Aveda curls," all a palpable testament to his myriad influences, including David Lynch, the songs of Bob Dylan and Cisco Houston, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, George Orwell, Mikhail Bulgakov, and the Wild West outlaw Cole Younger.
Pfeiffer is an artist of fantastical imagination and intelligence. He has piloted Captain Yonder, including drummer Derek Trost, long-time Yonder guitarist James Edlund, and saw player Adam Wirtzfeld, a professionally trained cartoonist, through an increasingly busy schedule of performances.
The band will be back on the road in late April and early May and expect to hit many markets including Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison, Nashville, St. Louis, Detroit and more. In addition, Captain Yonder will appear at this year's SXSW Music Festival in Austin at the Canvas Bar and Gallery for an afternoon showcase on Thursday, March 15, sponsored by Cultured Catch Salon (www.culturedcatch.com) and Gibson Guitars.
A sharp focus on details, and their assembly into broader reflections of mortality, absurdity, and love, permeate the songs of Good-Bye, Woland! It is at once both real and shards of a dream-beautiful, revealing, and dangerous.
