ALBUM RELEASE TOUR BEGINS IN FEBRUARY
NATURAL BEAUTY OUT ON TENDER LOVING EMPIRE FEBRUARY 14TH
PRE-ORDER HERE
Mo Troper makes grinningly great power-pop songs, while remaining ridiculously good at covering up his labor-intensive songwriting choices.” - NPR Music
“Troper’s gifts are undeniable” - Pitchfork
“Troper is unafraid to let his sharp tongue run wild” - Consequence Of Sound
“In true power-pop fashion, Troper's music maintains catchiness without losing an aching, emotional core.” - KEXP
“Mo Troper is the best power-pop Musician in Portland” - OPB Music
Mo Troper is returning with his 3rd album, and first for Portland’s Tender Loving Empire on February 14th and has shared his last single, a tongue-in-cheek ode to binge-eating, “I Eat”, at Talkhouse today. Troper opens up about his struggles with depression and the reprieve he, and many others, have found in binge-eating. Covering his time living in L.A. and New York before heading back to the PNW it’s a brutally honest piece discussing something many would be too ashamed to discuss, but as in his songwriting Troper is unflinching and unfiltered in this conversation about mental health. Head over to Talkhouse to hear the new single and read more.
Previously Troper ”tries out some Springsteen shit” on “Potential” which KEXP premiered alongside Troper’s upcoming album release tour. “Potential” is an incredibly catchy slice of power pop with a slick pop punk veneer, full of horns, strings and Troper’s lamentations of a wasted youth and coming to terms with the fact that you were just a huge dumbass. Speaking to the track Troper says;
"This is some Springsteen shit about lamenting unrealized potential from your adolescence and early adulthood when everyone has fewer responsibilities and more free time. Some people really do take advantage of that time in their lives. I, however, am a dumbass."
Mo Troper Album Release Tour
2/16 - Holocene - Portland, OR
2/18 - McFiler’s - Chehalis, WA
2/19 - Pub 340 - Vancouver, WA
2/21 - Brothers Gemini - Port Angeles, WA
2/22 - Funhouse - Seattle, WA
2/25 - Hi-Hat - Los Angeles, CA
2/26 - The Tower Bar - San Diego, CA
2/27 - Yucca Tap Room - Phoenix, AZ
2/28 - Tower District Records - Fresno, CA
2/29 - Holland Project - Reno, NV
3/25-29 - Treefort Festival - Boise, ID
4/3 - The Loading Dock - SLC, UT
4/8 - Subterranean Underground - Chicago, IL
4/9 - The 5 Spot - Nashville, TN
Troper’s previous single, “In Love With Everyone”, clocking in at just over two minutes, is about the pernicious aspects of scattershot love and maybe even missing out on something, or someone, because you’re just too enamored with everyone else. Troper details the true-life story behind the song saying it is “about a date I went on with someone that I thought about every day for four years. They sang a Four Seasons song at a karaoke bar in Portland called Chopsticks and I fell in love with them. It didn’t turn into anything then because I was also in love with everyone else. (Though not nearly as much.)” The singles continue to highlight the mature, but not too mature, full sound of Mo’s new album and new songs replete with horns, synths, video game bloops and everything you could want from an adorable, maybe kind of sad, power-pop tune. To even further put his money where his mouth is, both in terms of his nerdy obsession with video games and love of music Mo Toper opened a new all-ages venue/video game/record store in his home of Portland late last year. In a world of shuttered venues and the slow death of record stores, his choice speaks to his tenacity and love.
The first single from the album, “Jas From Australia”, is a quintessentially aging millennial ode to falling in love with someone off a video game message board. The single is accompanied by an animated video that sees Mo going through his day, working at a used video game store, drinking at the bar, before riding into the sky on what appears to be a purple manatee with breasts. “Jas From Australia” features a melody as buoyant and sweet as anything Ray Davies ever wrote, with a dash of Internet-age urgency mixed in. The song’s straightforward storytelling—Jas was Troper’s first love, they met online when they were teenagers, and never met in person—sets the listener up for this gut-punch two-thirds of the way through the song: “I said I was moving to Melbourne but I lied and now you know.” Troper relays the story of his yearning for a fellow video game nerd saying;
“I wrote this song in 10 minutes about the first relationship I was ever in. It was an internet relationship with someone who I met on a video game forum. It was a really innocent romance characterized by a shared love of Nintendo games that was ultimately corrupted by callowness and message board drama. It was a nightmare coordinating a time to talk on the phone, since we were on other sides of the world and both were in high school. I would fantasize about moving to Melbourne to be with them, but we never met. It’s the millennial “Thirteen.”"
Tender Loving Empire has released an eclectic mix of records including those by Dave Depper, Y La Bamba and Typhoon. They’re adding Troper’s irreverent power pop to the mix with his new album Natural Beauty, due out February 14th. Mo Troper will be on tour in 2020, including a showcasing slot at SXSW, with dates announcing soon.
Natural Beauty Tracklist
I Eat Your Boy In Love With Everyone Your New Friend Everything Jas From Australia Almost Full Control Potential Come And Get Me Lucky Devils Business As Usual Cameo
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