La Grande

TRACKS Side A La Grande  Milk-heavy, Pollen-eyed  Lion/Lamb  Skin, Warming Skin  The Rushing Dark  Side B Red Moon Crow/Swallow The Fire Time Is Not Feather Lungs RELEASE DATE 1/24/2012 La Grande (pronounced in the way of the American West, without any hint of French inflection – “luh grand”) is a town just east of the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon where native Oregonian Laura Gibson found inspiration while writing the songs that would become her new album of the same name. Gibson describes La Grande as a place that “people usually pass through on their way to somewhere else, but which contains a certain gravity, a curious energy.” The energy of the title track kicks off the record with a battering ram beat, hitting the ground like a herd of galloping horses. With the Tropicalia pulse, dirt-kicking distortion, whimsical woodwinds and heart murmur hooks on “Lion/Lamb,” and rail-jumping rhythms, majestic melodies and beyond-the-grave broadcasting of “The Rushing Dark