Mojave/Klamath by Opossum Sun Trail

How ubiquitous, the artists’ stories of their music written during the pandemic. Opossum Sun Trail’s story started similar to many of the others: down in Mexico riding horses naked into the gulf of California, completely blasted on Mezcal drunk from seashells with a friendly caballero. As the news reports continued to grow grim, Nola Pierce and Michael Dieter returned to the United States shortly after this ride to shelter out of a ’99 Ford Econoline deep in the Mojave Desert where they began writing new music.

These new compositions were effectively inspired and formed by one of the driest (and in the composers’ opinion) most starkly beautiful places on earth. In between bi-monthly 100 mile each way grocery runs, hand dug latrines, long daily desert ambles, wildlife and plant observations, these works formed and would become the first side of a new record.

The Mojave Desert also happens to be one of the hottest places on earth, so when an opportunity opened up for a rented room up in the Klamath mountains of Northern California it was a no brainier. Into the winter of snow and rain, music reflecting the tangled melange of the rugged and thick forested hills would be composed and become the second side of the new record.

A late winter sojourn for the duo back down to the desert to rehearse the new works via solar power was in order, followed by a trip to Los Angeles to rehearse with drummer John Daren Thomas. After tightening up the trio traveled up to Louder Studio in Grass Valley to record with the venerable Tim Green.

These new works titled simply Mojave/Klamath are a bioregional ode to the great landscapes that harbor great wilderness of intrinsic worth. A short run of 100 LPs have been pressed by Atlanta, GA label Echodelick records.

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