Tea Leaf Green offers a fresh version of their 2009 studio album Looking West as Looking West Redux. The 13-track LP is available now for purchase and streaming via Bandcamp before it hits all music services next Friday, May 28.
Looking West was originally recorded by the TLG lineup at the time consisting of Trevor Garrod, Josh Clark, Scott Rager and Reed Mathis. The band tapped Mathis to produce the album however, in Reed’s own words, he “kinda dropped the ball.” Reed took the unmixed recordings and rebuilt Looking West from scratch earlier this year.
“The band invited me to take a turn as producer, and I think I actually did something close to a really good job … rrrrrright up until it was time to seal the deal, at which point I kinda dropped the ball,” Mathis explained. “We rushed the album out to the marketplace, and because it had been mixed in a van hurtling down the interstate during the endless touring of 2009, the sound was bizarre and noisy and distracted.” This time around Reed took his time at the upscale Grey Room studio in Oakland to give the LP the treatment he feels it deserves.
Reed’s former band mates weighed in on Looking West and Looking West Redux:
This record was such a blast to make. Reed was pushing the band to some really exciting places with these songs in our live shows and I remember just feeling really powerful and confident as a band going into the studio. We had just changed up a lot of personnel on the business side of the band and were going into this with no record deal and no pressure, we just wanted for the first time the freedom to make the record we wanted to make and be involved in the entire process. We were thrilled that Reed wanted to record all these songs that were written before he was in the band and we saw the unique opportunity to not only make a record of where the band was at but where it came from and where it was going. We were deep in the touring machine and after the initial studio time the only time we had to work on the rest was, as Reed said, barrelling down the highway. While I’m proud of the original album, I’m also thrilled to have this version as it’s a stripped down bolder look at the band at this time in our lives. A really dynamic time with lots of changes personally and professionally and creatively happening for us all. I truly hope fans enjoy the Redux as much as I do. – Josh Clark
“Looking West is a great representation of the band at that moment in time – it consists of songs that had rattled around in our catalogue for years, yet were given a fresh voice with the influence of Reed’s interpretations,” Scott Rager said. “In retrospect, it was the end of an era for the band, as our personnel and sound shifted dramatically over the next few years. Ultimately, I remember it as a loose, creative, ‘get together’ of four friends with a shared vision of the musical process.”
“These songs are messages in bottles washed up on foreign shores, alien transmissions from distant worlds, memories from our fading youth, and reminders of our endless and repetitious search for love and freedom,” added Trevor Garrod.
Mathis has since parted ways with Tea Leaf Green who tapped Eric DiBerardino to play bass in the band. Stream/purchase Tea Leaf Green’s Looking West Redux below:
https://tealeafgreen.bandcamp.com/album/looking-west-redux
Looking West Redux Tracklist
- Can’t Get High
- Carter Hotel
- Bastard Brother
- Without A Broom
- Rattlin’
- Jackson Hole
- Dreaming Without Sleeping
- Emma Lee
- Bouncing Betty
- Don’t Let It Down
- Drink Of Streams
- Forgiven
- Looking West
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