Conor Oberst's new solo album, Upside Down Mountain, is out now. "Oberst faces west and backward, brilliantly, on Upside Down Mountain," writes Rolling Stone's David Fricke in a four-star review. "A sumptuous immersion in Seventies California folk pop, it is the most immediately charming album he has ever made." Oberst performs on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tonight and on CBS This Morning on Saturday. He performs at Rough Trade NYC in Brooklyn on Tuesday.
Singer-songwriter Conor Oberst's new solo album, Upside Down Mountain, is out now on Nonesuch Records. Oberst celebrates the release of his Nonesuch debut with a performance from the album on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tonight on NBC and on CBS This Morning this coming Saturday, May 24. He will also perform at Rough Trade NYC in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, tomorrow, and continues the US leg of his spring and summer world tour with stops in Philadelphia, Long Island, and Washington, DC, in the days ahead. For additional tour details, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
To pick up a copy of Upside Down Mountain, head to Amazon, iTunes, or the Nonesuch Store, where vinyl (due around May 30) and CD orders include a download of the complete album at checkout; MP3 and FLAC lossless files are also available to purchase there.
Rolling Stone gives Upside Down Mountain four stars.
"Oberst faces west and backward, brilliantly, on Upside Down Mountain," writes Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke. "A sumptuous immersion in Seventies California folk pop, it is the most immediately charming album he has ever made." Finding comparisons to Neil Young's Harvest and Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky, Fricke quotes Oberst's lyric "There are hundreds of ways to get through the day. . . . Now you just find one" to conclude of the album: "Here's a good place to start." Read the complete review at rollingstone.com.
The album is "artful and beautifully realized," says NPR's Tom Moon. "Upside Down Mountain suggests that Oberst is growing, rapidly, as a craftsman ... [H]e's brokering interior thoughts, choosing clusters of words for the ways they thrive, or sometimes disappear, inside the sonic swirl."
Oberst is Guest of Honor on this week's episode of public radio show Dinner Party Download. You can hear him discuss the new album and more at dinnerpartydownload.org.
In the UK, Upside Down Mountain is Album Of The Day today on BBC Radio 6 Music, so tune in to hear tracks from the album throughout the day. The album earns four stars from the Daily Mirror, Evening Standard, Oberver, and the Sun.
Upside Down Mountain features many other friends of Oberst’s, including producer Jonathan Wilson, engineer Andy LeMaster, bassist Macey Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Blake Mills, and the Swedish sibling folk-rock vocal duo First Aid Kit. What started as exploratory demos with producer-musician Jonathan Wilson at his Fivestar Studios in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, in a home Wilson rents from Oberst, became the first de facto album sessions. Returning to his native Omaha, Nebraska, Oberst kept rolling with the help of frequent collaborator, engineer, and friend Andy LeMaster at his own ARC Studios. Even more tracking followed in Omaha last November and December. Then Oberst and Wilson moved south to Blackbird Studio in Nashville.
“This is a return to an earlier way I wrote,” Oberst says of the songs on Upside Down Mountain. “It’s more intimate or personal, if you will. Even if all my songs come from the same place, you make different aesthetic decisions along the way. For me, language is a huge part of why I make music. I’m not the greatest guitar player or piano player—I’m not the greatest singer, either—but I feel if I can come up with melodies I like that are fused with poetry I’m proud of, then that’s what I bring to the table. That’s why I’m able to do this.”
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