DOWNLOAD: The Builders and the Butchers - "Lullaby" (from forthcoming disc Dead Reckoning)

Portland folk-rock band The Builders and the Butchers are releasing their third disc, Dead Reckoning, on Feb. 22nd via Badman Recording Co. and are also heading off on tour next month with Murder By Death.

For Dead Reckoning, The Builders went into the studio with the idea of peeling back layers to where the essence of the song lies, and to try and finally fully encapsulate their raucous, impassioned live show. Joining up with Adam Selzer (The Decemberists, M. Ward, She & Him), who worked on their sophomore album Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, and engineer Dylan Magierek (Mark Kozelek, Starfucker, Thao Nguyen), the band created their third album Dead Reckoning using the recording style of the 1950s and 1960s, where the magic of a song was captured by the band playing together live and with minimal overdubbing. The Builders tracked almost all of Dead Reckoning in live takes, with Sollee handling vocals and guitar in one room and the rest of the band playing in the other. Only a few minor overdubs were allowed and they played all of the instruments on every song, save for two guest violin parts laid down by friends Amanda Lawrence and Zy Orange Lynn. With tracking and mixing taking a total of only eight days, the energy and intensity of time spent in the studio is immediately apparent on each song.

A dead reckoning is an age-old method of sea navigation that involves using past position, speed, and drift to calculate current and future location. Dead Reckoning, with its classic, timeless sound, is a measure of where the band and its music, as well as these times in which we live, have been, are now, and where it all might be going. “I thought it would be a perfect title for the album given its stripped down sound, and how most of these songs tell stories, many of which are set in the past, “ Sollee reveals. “Like our previous records, the settings of the songs follow a few main ideas: the father and the son, early 1900s America, absolute good and evil, addiction, and religion. On this album, I really thought a lot about the end of the world and the dark times we live in, how the feelings we feel and the world we experience is not that different from 1930s America, and I thought about the music that was created at that time. This is where the inspiration for these songs originated.”

THE BUILDERS AND THE BUTCHERS TOUR DATES

FEB. 01 -- LEXINGTON, KY, COSMIC CHARLIE’S
FEB. 02 -- MEMPHIS, TN, HI-TONE CAFÉ
FEB. 03 -- NEW ORLEANS, LA, THE PARISH
FEB. 04 -- DENTON, TX, RUBBER GLOVES
FEB. 05 -- AUSTIN, TX, RED 7
FEB. 07 -- ALBUQUERQUE, NM, LOW SPIRITS BAR & STAGE
FEB. 08 -- TUSCON, AZ, PLUSH
FEB. 09 -- SAN DIEGO, CA, THE CASBAH
FEB. 10 -- COSTA MESA, CA, DETROIT BAR
FEB. 11 -- LOS ANGELES, CA, ECHOPLEX
FEB. 12 -- SAN FRANCISCO, CA, BOTTOM OF THE HILL
FEB. 13 -- SACRAMENTO, CA, HARLOW’S NIGHT CLUB
FEB. 15 -- PORTLAND, OR, WONDER BALLROOM
FEB. 16 -- SEATTLE, WA, TRACTOR TAVERN
FEB. 17 -- GARDEN CITY, ID, VISUAL COLLECTIVE ARTS
FEB. 18 -- SALT LAKE CITY, UT, BAR DELUXE
FEB. 19 -- DENVER, CO, BLUEBIRD THEATER
FEB. 20 -- OMAHA, NE, THE WAITING ROOM

Links:
The Builders and the Butchers