Tré Burt Shares Title Track From Upcoming New Album
Photo Credit: Mary Ellen Matthews
TRAFFIC FICTION OUT OCTOBER 6 VIA OH BOY RECORDS
North American Tour Kicks Off October, Joins Wilco on European Tour
Past Praise for Tré Burt
“A master storyteller”NPR
“Tre Burt uses his storytelling prowess to tell the stories of the moment” Grammy.com
“Burt’s lyrics take on the personal and political. He brings them to life with evocative imagery and little details that suck you in and offer a clear portrait of each song’s subject matter and tone” No Depression
“piercing new folk polemic” – Rolling Stone on “Under the Devil’s Knee”
“Sacramento based Tré Burt’s has a voice that envelopes you, embraces you like a weathered rustic novel told to you as an impressionable youngster by a loved one who is older and more wise.” – American Pancake
Singer-songwriter Tré Burt has shared the title-track off his forthcoming new album, Traffic Fiction, which is being released on October 6 via Oh Boy Records. The album marks a musical reinvention and is deeply influenced by the soul music he listened to with his grandfather as a child. His Grandfather, Tommy Burt passed away as he was writing this album, but their relationship is preserved via the 14 tracks found on Traffic Fiction. Of today’s single Tré shares, “’Traffic Fiction’ was originally a poem I wrote in a bar in Calgary called ‘A Poem Written in a Calgary Bar.’ I probably read some headline about impending war that day and thought ‘why is that my problem?’ and got to writing this poem over a beer and spliff in the early hours of morning. The words ‘Traffic Fiction’ seemed a good way to describe the way media, world leaders and governments exploit our fear of death in order to corroborate us in their own self interests, holding us all hostage on their sinking ship (and in a microcosmic sense how we everyday neighbors do the same to each other) and figured it make for a good song.” The video for the song was directed by Josh Shoemaker. Listen/share “Traffic Fiction” here and watch the clip here:
Tré previously teased the album with lead-single with the jubilant “Santiago” which saw support from No Depression, MXDWN, and Brooklyn Vegan, among others. Pre-order Traffic Fiction here.
On October 6 and 7 Tré will perform at The Los Angeles Folk Festival taking place at The Fold. The shows kick off his North American tour which also hits Brooklyn on October 7, Toronto on October 18 and Nashville on November 2 before concluding in Atlanta the following night, November 3. All dates are listed below and tickets are available HERE.
Traffic Fiction is the follow up to 2021’s You, Yeah, You, his sophomore album and one where bits of his roots and compositional ambitions began to emerge. On Traffic Fiction, they are in full bloom, from the sweet country-soul surrealism of the title track to the skywriting rock of “2 For Tha Show,” Burt as urgent and commanding as he’s ever been. Traffic Fiction is the sound of Burt confidently bending a sentimental past to his present will.
To get to this new alchemy of soul, dub, and more than a little punk, Burt returned to the basics—self-recording in sequestered silence. During a Canadian tour, he set aside a few days to stay in a friend’s spare apartment and write, renting enough instruments from the affordable gear emporium Long & McQuade to build a makeshift studio for his GarageBand demos. The title track soon emerged, its effortless magnetism prompted by a poem he’d written about stupid city congestion and a piece by saxophonist and singer Gary Bartz.
Burt recognized he had found the sound of the next album, so he booked another rural cabin in Canada for 9 days and rented more guitars, basses, and the same keyboard he’d bought during the You, Yeah, You sessions. For the better part of a lifetime, Burt had told himself he didn’t have the chops to sing like those childhood heroes from the Cadillac days. But now, as he built his one-man-band demos before returning to Nashville’s The Bomb Shelter to work with a trusted band of pals and esteemed producer Andrija Tokic, his versions of those sounds poured out in circumspect love songs and joyous tunes of existential reckoning. His grandfather was dying. The world was struggling with a pandemic and the specter of a third world war. But Burt gave himself permission to have fun and be funny, to let these songs lift him and, eventually, maybe others, too. Traffic Fiction indeed feels like a buoy amid these turbulent times, something that pulls us above the wreckage.
At three points during Traffic Fiction, Burt interweaves bits of recorded conversations with his late grandfather, Tommy. They talk about Stevie Wonder, Burt’s career and the fatigue it can bring, and, finally, the sense that he’s carrying on a family tradition through these records. It’s a reminder not only of what Burt experienced while making Traffic Fiction but also of what he overcame. He found strength in the soul of his youth, and, for that, he’s never sounded stronger.
Tracklisting
1. Play Stevie Wonder
2.Traffic Fiction
3. Kids in tha Yard
4.Piece of Me
5. Win My Heart
6. I’m Aight Pops, Just Tired
7. All Things Right
8. To Be a River
9. Told Ya Then
10. Wings for a Butterfly
11. Santiago
12. 2 For Tha Show
13. Yo Face
14. BNB Maintenance, Inc