WHEN YOU GO TO SEE A FILM you are effectively allowing your consciousness to be hijacked for an hour and a half. That's the sort of experience we're trying to create with One Fine Ride. It's not the kind of album you play while making dinner. It's not the kind of music you listen to on Sunday morning.

When I listen to certain albums the right way, things go by like a ride at Disneyland. If I put on headphones and close my eyes I become immersed into a separate world with characters and textures and sounds; a sonic environment with height and width and depth. I like the idea of creating this other reality.

As artists we have complete control of this other world. And as the listener, you have to have unfailing faith that the artists are going to look out for you - to take care of you. Welcome again to the Kingdom of Leisure.

Rich Walkling, the Otter Farm, Maryland

WE'VE BEEN ASKED TO FESS UP, so here goes. Call it reverse engineering or black box science or voodoo technology or whatever, but we've done it again. The Kingdom of Leisure has hand-crafted another incredible concept album outside of the influence of narrow corporate expectations and well astray of the clichés and banality of what's being hailed as "pop" music. Welcome to a world where signal noise is part of the sound.

Part two of our tripgrass trilogy, One Fine Ride is another musical journey. This time, we take you for a ride. You get on the bike and we pedal and steer, we tempt and taunt. All you have to do is find a cozy zone and press the 'play' button.

For added adventure, there's an entire bonus level of sounds you hear only while listening with headphones. This album makes the most sense within the given sequence and in comparison with our last album. Each song relates directly to and specifically with every other song. It's an album; it's not a collection of the songs that we know how to play together. We don't do that. There is a beginning and there is an end. It's a progressive composition.

It's all about vision and craft; it's a taste acquired. We've woven intelligent, credible, challenging sounds and environments together through improvisation, interaction, personality and musicianship. It won't make much sense to a lot of people, but we know this. We aren't dissuaded by this fact. We are all about legend. We're all about evolution.

That's tripgrass, man.

Ty Hardaway, Claremont, California

 

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