I Am The Moon: II. Ascension Tedeschi Trucks Band

• 1 Playing With My Emotions 04:12
• 2 Ain't That Something 05:25
• 3 All The Love 09:01
• 4 So Long Savior 02:40
• 5 Rainy Day 04:49
• 6 La Di Da 04:09
• 7 Hold That Line 06:04
• Total Runtime 36:20

Info for I Am The Moon: II. Ascension

With "II. Ascension" the Tedeschi Trucks Band continues their four studio album series "I Am The Moon" and releases the second album within four weeks after "I. Crescent".

The fifth and most ambitious studio project of TTB's storied career: I Am The Moon, an epic undertaking in four albums and 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 and will be released in successive months beginning with I Am The Moon - I. Crescent.

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.

Tedeschi Trucks Band

The Tedeschi Trucks Band
led by the husband-and-wife duo of guitarist and vocalist Susan Tedeschi and slide guitarist Derek Trucks — began as a summer touring unit known as the Soul Stew Revival. It was both a practical consideration for the pair to spend time together with their young family and a musical endeavor. Soul Stew Revival featured members of their own bands and numerous guest musicians, and the loose-knit cooperative band performed roof-raising shows full of soul, blues, funk, and gospel standards, as well as original material. After one of these tours, the pair decided to create a home studio to be better able to finance their own recordings. Tedeschi and Trucks performed a cover of 'Space Captain' on Herbie Hancock's Imagine Project, and solidified an 11-piece band from their own units, as well as horn players and percussionists. Renamed the Tedeschi Trucks Band, they signed to Sony's Masterworks imprint, recorded over 30 songs, and eventually pared the selection down to 11 tracks for their debut album, Revelator, which was released in June 2011 and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. It was followed in the spring of 2012 by Live: Everybody's Talkin', a sprawling double-disc set which featured material from Revelator, alongside some carefully-chosen cover versions. August 2013 brought a second studio album, Made Up Mind, which featured co-writing credits from the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and Soulive's Eric Krasno.

This album contains no booklet.