MORIS TEPPER
Building A Nest
LSE 051 April 5 2024
CD Pricing: SRP $12.99 /$8.05 WP
UPC: 760137152705
La Société Expéditionnaire/Candlebone Records
PR: christopher.jereb@shinypebblepr.com

An album of the finest and most intimate song-craft to date from Moris Tepper; long-time collaborator of Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Frank Black, Robyn Hitchcock, and more.

Moris Tepper is a legendary guitarist, songwriter, and visual artist perhaps best known for his work with Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Frank Black, Robyn Hitchcock, and many others. Building A Nest is his seventh album in two decades of growth and maturation as a solo artist. This album finds him depicting a world of its own in a more intimate, reflective state.

Like his past releases, this new album casts various emotions and styles. But, as the album's title suggests, a new path is blazed here that moves in a more homeward-bound direction. These songs reflect a large swath of Tepper's life, experiences, and adventures. Like a master cartographer, he has distilled much of it, creating an audible map leading him home and inviting us to follow.

As we'd expect from Tepper, the album is not without its surprises, humor, and despair. He has never been one to create a collection of songs in the same set of colors and tones. His track orders are often filled with turn-on-a-dime twists and Building A Nest is no exception. Intimate folk ballads like “In The Morning”, reside next to the cardboard-box delta blues of “Blackbone Chicken”, seasoned and served with the McCartney/Stones style rocker “She Had To Run".

While Tepper has always embraced turning popular music on its head, it’s his songwriting and arranging at the heart of his work. “Four Kids And A Bronco” depicts a mother driving with her four children, with “no home, no bank account, their luck had all run out,” and in despair, ends it all. “Power To The Homies” details an epic journey of childhood friends who regain connection after a lifetime of searching to find themselves. “Little Job” shares a sketch of a hitman who wants out, on the run from a boss who won't allow it.

Tepper has crafted stories of human love, devotion, isolation, and despair...life's passions and absurdities, enhanced with ruminative instrumental interludes. Building A Nest is certainly a high water mark in Tepper’s career, and upon one listen it’s clear that the water is still rising.

Past Praise for Moris Tepper:

"Sharp songcraft.”
- Pitchfork

"An album of invention and originality.”
- MOJO

"An impressive figure in his own right - as this batch of surreal foot-stompers and hallucinatory ballads clearly shows.”
- The Wire

"Tepper’s tunes are as beautiful and powerful as they are crazy and playful, but possessing undeniable emotional depth."
- High Times

“Interesting, if not downright brilliant."
- Goldmine

"Accessibly Avant-Garde, warm and comforting….a masterpiece of relentless beauty."
- LA Weekly

Please visit www.candlebone.com for more Moris Tepper music and visual art.