Tom Filepp, the Portland, Oregon-based singer/songwriter who is Cars And Trains, released his sophomore full-length, The Roots, The Leaves, today. The original album, along with a free, remixed version called The Roots, The Remix, was released via his self-run Circle Into Square Records, which is also the home of such talented artists as Big Spider's Back and Helios. Filepp is absurdly prolific, and The Roots, The Leaves represents his fifth studio album since the debut of Consumer Confidence Volume One in January of 2006.

This new album is a collection of poetic folktronica and a thick array of instrumentals, like the two wordless title tracks, "The Roots" and "The Leaves," that are replete with glockenspiel, banjo, trumpet and viola. The result is a combination of electronica, lo-fi pop and folk—a beautifully convoluted sound forged from the combination of the natural and the unnatural. It's an investigation into the fabricated and the brutally honest, which culminates with the line, "The meter of the song that I sing looses time with the air that I breathe through my lungs as the dust settles" (from the album's single "Intimidated By Silence").

The Roots, The Leaves gives listeners melancholy without creating its music around it. It doesn't feel like the lyrics were written for the melodies or vice versa, but that they, instead, always arrive together, fully formed.

Track Listing For The Roots, The Leaves:
01. I Know Someone Who Can't Recognize
02. Asleep On A Train
03. The Birds In Your Chest
04. The Roots
05. Intimidated By Silence
06. The Sun Always Sets
07. Drop Ceilings And Day Planners
08. The Leaves
09. Some Lonesome Street Corner
10. Dead Telephone

Tour Dates For Cars And Trains:
02/05 – Portland, OR – KPSU Live Friday
02/06 – Portland, OR – Backspace
03/01 – Seattle, WA – Lo-Fi Performance
03/07 – Los Angeles, CA – McWorld

www.carsandtrains.net/

www.myspace.com/carsandtrainsmusic

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