photo credit: Ed Coyle

***

On April 29 Kitchen Dwellers will release their new studio album. Vulfpeck’s Cory Wong produced Wise River, the follow-up to 2019’s Muir Maid. As we noted in a profile of the quartet that tracked the quartet’s development, they have “expanded their experimental bluegrass sound by embracing their love of electronica, metal, jam music and everything in between.”  The songs on the new record build on this range, while also reflecting on the group’s Bozeman, Montana home. Mandolin player Shawn Swain notes, “The town of Wise River is basically a forgotten spot on the map. It used to be a thriving place with many prosperous mines, but now it’s practically dried up. There’s a hell of a lot of melancholy. In our mind, it symbolizes the overall feeling of being in slowed-down Montana life.”

Today we premiere a dynamic animated video for “Sundown,” from the forthcoming record. Banjo player Torrin Daniels tells Relix, “When I finished this song, I had been working on this riff for quite a while in a sort of banjo-metal fashion. I wrote the lyrics during those “peak quarantine” days in the Spring of 2020, and the verses definitely reflect my mental state at the time. The phrases about time receding and the hourglass running slow reference the elasticity of time, and how our minds can warp when we’re confined to one space physically. I think almost everyone can relate to that now.”

Kitchen Dwellers also feature Joe Funk on upright bass and Max Davies on acoustic guitar. Jameson Mangan is the animator of the video.  Wise River is now available for pre-order.