Pinetop Seven

It’s been five years since Darren Richard’s band Pinetop Seven released Bringing Home the Last Great Strike.The group has kept busy in the interim with a number of projects—including soundtracking old silent films—but is only now releasing its fifth, The Night’s Bloom, which features more of Richard’s detail-rich, narrative-driven songs unfolding against a textured musical backdrop.

“I’m embarrassed to say, we started recording this record in 2003,” Richard says with a laugh. “I just look back and think, ‘What have I been doing?’ But life moves quickly. You wake up and it’s next year all of a sudden.”

During its early years, Pinetop Seven’s lineup changed with every release. For the past four years, however, the band has remained generally stable. In addition to Richard, the “Pinetop Five” are trumpeter Nate Walcott, cellist Melissa Bach, guitarist Mack Hagood, bassist Andy Rader and percussionist Ned Folkerth. Still, recording and touring have proven difficult: Folkerth recently moved to Portland, Ore., and Walcott, a New York resident, has been busy with high-profile projects like Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley.

Fortunately, these challenges don’t seem to have affected the new record. While Last Great Strike was to some degree a “solo venture,” The Night’s Bloom sounds like a strong collaborative effort from the first note. Walcott’s trumpet adds a noir flourish to “Easy Company” and a majestic coda to “His Aging Miss Idaho,” while Bach’s cello, bolstered by the Chicago-based Quartet Parapluie, helps create a cinematic atmosphere.

The Night’s Bloom sounds less somber and isolated than its predecessors. “We knew we wanted a bigger, more-fully-realized- and-orchestrated sound with this one,” Richard says, “and we had the people and the connections to realize that. I think that lends a somewhat festive atmosphere to things.”