Tedeschi Trucks Band - I Am The Moon (2022) [Hi-Res]

The fifth and most ambitious studio project of TTB's storied career: I Am The Moon, an epic undertaking of 24 original songs. Inspired by a mythic Persian tale of star-crossed lovers and emotionally driven by the isolation and disconnection of the pandemic era, I Am The Moon totals more than two hours of new music.

Tedeschi Trucks Band invite you to experience I AM THE MOON, an expansive, inspired, and ambitious musical journey that propels the treasured American ensemble into new and thrilling creative territory.

During the pandemic and its corresponding isolation, Tedeschi Trucks Band, one of the music’s most admired and successful live music draws, was searching for something to hold on to; a way to connect to each other and their craft. They had come off a triumphant performance of Derek and the Dominoes’ classic Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs with Trey Anastasio at the LOCKN’ Festival, which subsequently led to the release of the band’s acclaimed live album, last summer’s Layla: Revisited. Looking for an idea, TTB vocalist Mike Mattison turned to Layla’s rich source material for inspiration: Layla and Majnun, the legendary ninety-page narrative poem of star-crossed lovers by 12th Century Sufi poet Nizami. As a writing exercise, Mattison challenged the group to delve into the poem’s deeper themes. As he pointed out, Clapton’s “Layla” only used one element of the poem - Majnun’s love-madness - whereas the poem itself contains multitudes: family drama, classism, isolation, judgment, and the severe cost of single-minded mania, even in the cause of love. (Indeed, Layla and Majnun is believed to be the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and many other eastern and western literary classics.)

Challenge accepted. With a burst of creativity and focus over the course of the next year, the band wrote and recorded the best material of their career: an electric and vibrant conceptualization that spans the richness of American music as only they can. The prolific sessions were so successful, they ended up with a little over two hours of essential music. Despite its sprawling nature, the tracks on I AM THE MOON are concise and visceral, epitomizing and enhancing the collaborative nature of the storytelling.

Song writing this time was a true band effort, with major contributions from vocalist Mike Mattison, keyboardist Gabe Dixon, and drummer Tyler Greenwell along with Derek and Susan. Desire, madness, fate, violence, separation, and revival are explored with careening energy, existential dread, and endless possibility. Produced once again with sonic brilliance by Derek Trucks, the band here is in hyperspace mode. With inspirational touchstones that range from Little Feat’s Lowell George to R&B legend Allen Toussaint, fusion virtuoso John McLaughlin, experimentalist Sun Ra, to jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman and beyond, I AM THE MOON mines psychedelia, New Orleans soul, free-form jazz, and swampy Afrocentric roots music -- a space-age jambalaya of epic songwriting and sterling, boundary-pushing musicianship.