Tuatara Travel East Of the Sun On Fast Horse

Tuatara's East Of The Sun, their fifth album overall and first in four years, will hit stores on June 12 via Fast Horse Recordings.

The band were formed in Seattle in 1996 by R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin. The new disc features guitarist Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5), bassist Kevin Hudson, trumpet/flugelhorn player Dave Carter and saxophonist/flutist Craig Flory. The Jayhawks' Gary Louris and Mark Olson, American Music Club's Mark Eitzel, The Geraldine Fibbers' Jessy Greene, Luna's Dean Wareham, John Wesley Harding, Victoria Williams, Gina Sala and poet Coleman Barks contributed vocals.

Tuatara, named after a New Zealand reptile, was originally put together to create music for film soundtracks. But they've evolved from an instrumental studio act into a performing group that dabbles in a variety of genres. The band have written enough material over the past four years that another album, West Of The Moon, will soon follow this one.

"Musically, the Sun songs are more masculine, with a kind of High Plains Drifter/Spanish troubadour quality," says Martin. "The Moon songs are more groovy and feminine, and definitely just as powerful as the Sun songs.

"Fourteen of the 15 tracks on the new record can be heard on the Fast Horse website.

Here are the songs on East Of The Sun:
"Waterhole"
"The Spaniard"
"Bones, Blood, And Skin"
"Silo Spring Violets"
"Trouble Rides In"
"Missionary Death Song"
"A Spark In The Wind"
"Madrigal"
"All The Colors In The World"
"Orpheus Must Die"
"Your Ghost Town"
"Thank You Jesus"
"Rainbow Drops"
"Love Is"
"Oxman Spoonmaker"