"I've come to expect good records from him...but this one took my breath away."
--Bob Boilen, NPR Music
So Runs The World Away, the new album from renowned singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, will be released May 4 on Pytheas Recordings. This is the fifth full-length recording from Ritter, who has been widely heralded by critics and fans alike. Of the Idaho-native, Paste magazine declares, "Put simply, Ritter is the most gifted interpreter of Americana, as an arranger and a lyricist, working today."
Recorded over 15 months at the Great North Sound Society in Maine, with additional recording at Brooklyn's Saltlands Studio, So Runs The World Away continues Ritter's longtime collaboration with producer and keyboard player Sam Kassirer. Additionally, the album features the return of Ritter's core line-up of touring bandmates: Zack Hickman, Austin Nevins and Liam Hurley.
Of the record, Ritter says, "I think of the songs on So Runs the World Away like pictures painted in oil on large canvasses. It's a record preoccupied with the extremes of scale, from infinitesimal particles to the nearly incomprehensible distances between the head of a pin and a nebula. Where the songs felt large to me, I wanted them to be huge, both musically and lyrically. I wanted them to feel like the steel hulls of massive ships sliding by deeply from below. Where they were small, I concentrated in on the smallest details that I could and we tried to make the music and the words work together. I love writing, and this was the most fulfilling record I've yet written."
A national full-band tour is planned is support of the record, including two dates at New York's Town Hall on May 19 and 20. Please see reverse for full tour details. Furthermore a limited-edition vinyl format of the album will be available at indie retailers nationwide in celebration of Record Store Day on April 17--more than two weeks before the official release date. The LP will also include the album on CD.
In addition to writing the songs on this album, Ritter has been working on a novel set in rural West Virginia in the aftermath of the First World War. Tentative publication date is summer 2011 on Dial Press/Random House.
--Bob Boilen, NPR Music
So Runs The World Away, the new album from renowned singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, will be released May 4 on Pytheas Recordings. This is the fifth full-length recording from Ritter, who has been widely heralded by critics and fans alike. Of the Idaho-native, Paste magazine declares, "Put simply, Ritter is the most gifted interpreter of Americana, as an arranger and a lyricist, working today."
Recorded over 15 months at the Great North Sound Society in Maine, with additional recording at Brooklyn's Saltlands Studio, So Runs The World Away continues Ritter's longtime collaboration with producer and keyboard player Sam Kassirer. Additionally, the album features the return of Ritter's core line-up of touring bandmates: Zack Hickman, Austin Nevins and Liam Hurley.
Of the record, Ritter says, "I think of the songs on So Runs the World Away like pictures painted in oil on large canvasses. It's a record preoccupied with the extremes of scale, from infinitesimal particles to the nearly incomprehensible distances between the head of a pin and a nebula. Where the songs felt large to me, I wanted them to be huge, both musically and lyrically. I wanted them to feel like the steel hulls of massive ships sliding by deeply from below. Where they were small, I concentrated in on the smallest details that I could and we tried to make the music and the words work together. I love writing, and this was the most fulfilling record I've yet written."
A national full-band tour is planned is support of the record, including two dates at New York's Town Hall on May 19 and 20. Please see reverse for full tour details. Furthermore a limited-edition vinyl format of the album will be available at indie retailers nationwide in celebration of Record Store Day on April 17--more than two weeks before the official release date. The LP will also include the album on CD.
In addition to writing the songs on this album, Ritter has been working on a novel set in rural West Virginia in the aftermath of the First World War. Tentative publication date is summer 2011 on Dial Press/Random House.
