Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Minneapolis-based songwriter Ryan Traster’s new REM-influenced single “Lost in a Sound” is The Current’s “Song of the Day.”

Artist’s new cosmic-country LP “Choses Obscures” arrives July 19th; Traster plays a record release at St. Paul’s Turf Club July 6th.

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Ryan Traster as photographed by Kimberly Traster

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Ryan Traster | Live


07/06/2019: Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club (Record Release Show) (Tickets)

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Ryan Traster | “Lost in a Sound”


The latest single from Ryan Traster’s upcoming new album Choses Obscures is “Lost in a Sound,” named a “Song of the Day” by Minnesota Public Radio station The Current and recently premiered via music discovery website Austin Town Hall, which asks, “You ever press play on a track and immediately feel like you’re home; you immediately get that feeling of maximum comfort?”

Traster explains, “I was really deep in a Big Star, REM, Let’s Active phase when I put this one together. The song is a look at the cyclical nature of chasing the muse. Whether that be art or love, it can have the ability to act as both the source and savior. I think it’s important to let it consume you but also to not let it become too cruel to the soul.”

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Ryan Traster
Choses Obscures
(Slow Start Records)
July 19th, 2019


Track Listing:

01. Old World Present Tense
02. New Again (STREAM | MP3)
03. How Dark It's Been
04. Lost in a Sound (STREAM | MP3)
05. Libra
06. Endless Summer Blues (STREAM | MP3)
07. Kansas
08. Busy Mind Lazy Mouth

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Ryan Traster | In The Press

“Catchy, classic folk-rock tunes.” — 89.3 The Current (Minnesota Public Radio)

“A folk-country gem teeming with wanderlust and impeccable vocals.” — Vita.mn

“Cuts straight to the chase, brushes cheeks with brashness, and makes no apologies.” — City Pages (Minneapolis)

“Evokes comparisons to Grant Lee Phillips or Josh Ritter.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“An extremely impressive slice of Americana.” — My Old Kentucky Blog

“Warm, folk-influenced pop that’s likely to appeal to Jayhawks fans.” — St. Paul Pioneer Press

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Ryan Traster | About

The upcoming new album by Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Ryan Traster (July 19th, Slow Start Records) features that warm, worn-in vibe of an album that’s been in your cool parents record collection since you were a kid. Eventually, it gets passed down to you to take along into “the real world” and is there when you need to be reminded of being a kid again.

It’s that gem of a find in a milk crate of vinyl at the local tag sale on a Sunday afternoon. The kind of album that becomes an all-time favorite, only discovered there by the person who knows what they’re looking for and has the time to dig for it.

Choses Obscures (the title translates from French as “obscure things,” and implies a “dark energy”) is both of those things, and that implied darkness provides a subtle mask that contrasts and deepens the sunny images above.

When Traster throws curve balls with lyrics of places and times that don’t abide the most famed of singer-songwriter eras (the kind that even the album’s cover art evokes), things get real.

It comes as a jaw-dropping surprise to hear Jesus and Mary Chain name-dropped on “Endless Summer Blues” when Traster sings, “We were living in Echo Park / I was smoking dope in the backyard / You were listening to all those Mary Chain records / We had the endless summer blues.”

According to Traster, the album’s cosmic-country, straight outta Laurel Canyon feel is heavily influenced by Skip Spence, Bert Jansch, and Judee Sill, all of whom passed before their time. That “beyond the grave” murkiness pervades Traster’s lyrics in a profound way, even down to that JAMC reference.

Choses Obscures is “born from the subconscious in troubled times, both personally and globally,” Traster explains.

“I wrote a good chunk of this record while traveling the east coast, following a few years of international touring,” he says. “I ended up in Nashville, going to dive bars alone, and hanging out in a dingy bedroom.”

After that long world-wide stretch on stage, Traster was actually unable to perform when he got to Nashville, as he had sustained a vocal cord injury on the road.

“My focus was solely on crafting the best material I could with the plan to record it when I regained full health,” he says.

It was a dark period for Traster, but he managed to find inspiration while working at Nashville’s world famous Ryman Auditorium, where “listening to old timer’s tales, and being submerged in song, helped me create what I believe is my best material to date.”

Choses Obscures, the second full-length album by Ryan Traster, arrives July 19th from Slow Start Records. Ryan Traster is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.

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Ryan Traster | Links


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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact


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