Tracer Heights by Tracer Heights

This album was recorded during what could be called an "embryonic" time for the band. We had been playing shows for about ten months, and while we'd built some confidence and were no strangers to the stage individually, we had this collection of original songs that was still pretty new to us as a group. We were offered a gig at Davey's Uptown to play a set on a bill with a touring reggae band on the day before New Years Eve. It was a deep, dark and cold December night in Kansas City. Can you picture it?

It turns out the reggae band was playing Miami the night before. Yes, Miami Florida. Needless to say, they missed the show and we were asked to play two sets. No problem right? We only had at most ten original songs at the time. But sure, why not?

We decided to throw caution to the wind, lean on our improvisational influences, and really see what we could do with this freedom to explore. We paid Byron the sound guy to record it to multi track. We really just wanted any sort of promo material at that point. Little did we know we'd capture something that would become really precious to us.

We decided we'd pick our favorite performances from the show and have it mixed and mastered professionally. These songs go to outer space and back. They aren't radio friendly, and they have some mistakes compared to how we play them now. But there's also an untethered and free quality to the performances. They're for late night drives, but they're also for sunny afternoons in headphones while you sink into the couch in the living room. It's a journey through the dark, with characters that are good, evil, thoughtful, joyous and sad. It might give you a chill, but then it'll also make your heart sing when you least expect it.

Tracer Heights is a power trio fusing rock, blues and bluegrass with the spirit of psychedelic improvisational music.