Morgan Geer has lived and played in nearly every region of the country and sounds like it. Born in San Francisco to idealistic Alabama runaways, Morgan grew up traveling around the US following his folk-singing mother.
The Name of the Ghost is Home, the new album by Drunken Prayer (due out via Fluff and Gravy Records on April 22nd), transcends the bounds of Americana music. For the last year Morgan Geer has been working from his home studio, building on drum tracks initially recorded in Albuquerque, NM at Empty House Studios, home of doom metal bands like OM and Sleep. The end result evokes an ominous acid Western feedback-and-driftwood aesthetic.
The album marries the sturdy, melodic, wry and deep songs of 2019’s Cordelia Elsewhere (mixed by Mitch Easter), with the expansive meditation of the ambitious 17 minute long funeral-raga, Electric Daddyland from 2021. This is music that could have emerged from a highly blissed-out biker bar or at a swampy ashram.
The core group of musicians on this record are Morgan Geer, who plays most of the instruments and sings, and the experimental duo GRAL: Greg Williams, percussion and Alex McMahon, synth and pedal steel (Williams and McMahon are also frequent members of ghostly Americana icons The Handsome Family).
Today Glide is excited to premiere the video for the standout track “Oasis In The Yard,” which features Eric Slick from Dr. Dog joining the group to deliver a killer Billy Preston Goat’s Head Soup-era clavinet performance. Drunken Prayer’s signature laid back style is present all over this song, but at the same time it’s something of a party anthem. It also marks a bit of a departure from Morgan Geer’s Southern-inflected rock and Americana and finds this underrated artist tapping into a sound that draws from 70s pop. Feisty guitar solos, big boogie from the clavinet, and plenty of good time swagger come together to make for a song that demands you crank up the volume.
WATCH:
2 Responses
Niiice! Elegant ending sequence too
I love this. I’m gonna listen agin right now. Can’t wait for the whole album.