Josh Ritter's Blog
January 11, 2023
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November 11, 2022
June 28, 2022
Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding) – New Solo EP only on Bandcamp & Merchtable
Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)
New solo EP only available on Bandcamp and Merchtable
01. Father’s War
02. Theophany
03. Henryville
04. Truth Is A Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)
Credits:
Josh Ritter: vocals and guitar
Recorded and mixed by Derek Haukaas at Frostline Studios in Anchorage, Alaska on June 6, 2022
Mastered by Daniel Goodwin
Layout and design by Michael Byzewski at Aesthetic Apparatus
All songs © ℗ Josh Ritter (Rural Songs, ASCAP)
I’m not sure what to say about these songs except that it felt so important to me, for some reason, that I shared them now. There is so much Absurdity in the world already, that it felt like their strangenesses, visitations and annunciations, blood and starlight (in four little songs), had met their moment. So, here they are, just me and four weird story songs.
I wrote these each line by line, not knowing where the stories would go from one syllable to the next. Sometimes that happens with songs. Most times it’s different, but these four songs felt found by a light held out in front of me. I experienced their twists and turns in real-time as I was writing. It felt so cool. Like normal, I have absolutely no memory of actually writing them.
So, I had these weird uncovered-feeling songs, but I didn’t realize their cohesion together until a few weeks ago, at 10:12 pm, in Anchorage, Alaska. I was looking out the window of the little house where I was staying. Though it was late at night, the sun was still high, and the sky was sub-Arctic and powder-blue.
We call them “flashes” of inspiration because that’s how they physically feel; it shouldn’t be so bright in there, between our ears, but there’s no denying that our minds at times are briefly filled with light, and the turns in the labyrinth are illuminated before us.
Don’t get me wrong! I’m not calling this feeling extra-special or anything. We all get that feeling, at times. Sometimes I get that feeling about what to make the kids for dinner, too. In this case, however, the Imperative that I was feeling was to record these songs immediately, and to release them as quickly as possible.
At 10:13 pm at night, with the sun shining through the kitchen window, I was booking three hours with a local studio for the next afternoon.
I’m not going to be doing vinyl or anything right now, and I’m keeping it off streaming services for now. I’m just following my little ol’ heart on this one.
I’m super proud of these songs. Thank you for giving me the chance to write them and release them. I deeply, deeply appreciate it.
Rock On!
Josh
August 16, 2021
Order a signed copy of The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All!
A limited amount of signed copies of The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All are available at these fine independent bookstores!
Austin, TX – Bookpeople
Bethany Beach, DE – Bethany Beach Books
Brooklyn, NY – Books Are Magic
Brooklyn, NY – Community Book Store
Coral Gables, FL – Books & Books
Corte Madera, CA – Books Passage
East Sandwich, MA – Titcomb’s Bookshop
Grand Rapids, Lansing, & Okemos, MI- Schuler Books & Nicola’s Books
Greenville, SC – Fiction Addiction
Madison, CT – RI Julia Booksellers
Manchester Center, VT – Northshire Manchester
Milwaukee, WI – Boswell Book Company
Multiple locations in California – Books, Inc.
Multiple locations in California – Tattered Cover
Multiple locations in California – Vroman’s Bookstore
Multiple locations in Illinois – Anderson’s Bookshop
Multiple locations in Kentucky – Carmichael’s Bookstore
Multiple locations in New York – McNally Jackson Books
Mystic, CT – Bank Square Books
Nashville, TN – Parnassus Books
Newport, RI – Charter Books
Petowskey, MI – Mclean and Eakin Booksellers
Plainville, MA – An Unlikely Story Bookstore
Salt Lake City, UT – The King’s English Bookshop
Seattle, WA – Elliott Bay Book Company
St. Louis, MO – Left Bank Books
Washington, DC – Politics & Prose
