Trace Mountains Fills in the Gaps Between Every Track on Into the Burning Blue

Rainwater ripples across the surface of the spacey first notes of “In a Dream,” the opener of Trace Mountains’ new album, Into the Burning Blue, produced by Craig Hendrix of Japanese Breakfast. The atmospheric synth lines and drum machine loops pool around minimal, largely monosyllabic lyrics about going about business as usual as the world burns and existence within it becomes more and more surreal. Dave Benton’s minute observations turn the ordinary existential and cast an outwardly reflective shadow from moments of solitude: “The naked sun like a stone sinks low and you wonder / Where it goes will there be thunder? / Where it shines will the people suffer? / Do you have faith in it then? / The way you always pretend? / Can a country be good? / Can a person learn?”

“From the start of the record-making process, Craig and I envisioned “In a Dream” as the opening track on Into the Burning Blue,” Benton says of the album and the single. “On an album that is largely auto-biographical and very personal in nature, it felt vital to begin in a place with a bit of worldview. Especially now, in an election year in the US, I think it’s meaningful to acknowledge the state-inflicted suffering and denial of life that happens here and all over the world. There are so many kinds of Dreams, some are nightmares, some are fantasies, some are very real hopes for one’s future. With “In A Dream” I wanted to explore the universal idea of Dreams—the ones that come at night and the day, what they mean, and who gets to have them.”

“In a Dream” floats between the conscious and the subconscious, the personal and the universal, expanding to hold multiple realities as they unfold simultaneously. Flames can destroy, but they can also cleanse—“like a loving fire / a burning desire.” A dream can obscure or clarify, be an escapist distraction or a vision of a better future. On Into the Burning Blue, these contradictions come to life. We’ve asked Benton to walk us through every track on the record, and he was kind enough to oblige. Tune in, scroll through and enjoy.

“In A Dream”

Dreams! What do they mean? Where do they come from? I really have no idea, but it was fun to try to create this whole shifting, morphing dream world to fly through on a bike ride. I wanted the whole song to feel like this racing, heavy, exhilarating, panting movement.

“Hard To Accept”

I first performed this song to an extremely disinterested crowd in Troy, NY. Everyone was talking like crazy and I felt mad awkward singing the line “sometimes you just don’t listen”… I don’t think anyone really noticed anyway. Oh well!

“Friend”

My friend Anika Pyle texted me yesterday after listening to the album and said “‘Friend’ speaks deeply to our deep desire to be boyfriends.” I thought that was both hilarious and accurate.

“Ponies”

This one’s my favorite on the album! Craig and I were initially struggling to give ‘Ponies’ the impact we wanted it to have, but once Jill Ryan (of Great Time) added her backing vocals & Meg Duffy (of Hand Habits) ripped the guitar solo at the end, it really started to pull at the heartstrings. I think their contributions brought some great dynamics to the recording that it needed.

“Crawling Back To You”

I cried when we finally got this song right. I tried to record it a few times with other people before I brought it to Craig and everyone kept trying to mellow it out. I loved how he saw it as the sensitive-but-driving rock tune that I wanted it to be.

“Gone & Done”

This one is me tryna do my best Kurt Vile. Had a huge phase with that guy and learned a lot about vocal performance from seeing him live. At the time of writing ‘Gone & Done’, I was thinking about the death of my Mother’s sister and the confusion that comes with loss. I think it ties in with the themes of loss on the album, even though it’s technically about a different type of loss.

“Melt”

This one’s just supposed to be sexy or something! I thought it might be fun to try that in a song. Not much more to it than that!

“Cry Cry Cry”

A song about the relief of crying your eyes out. We decided to use my original demo recording for the album cut. Felt like a nice step back, an intimate moment on the record.

“Won’t Go Home”

I started writing this song during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 but had trouble making it past the first two lines. I was trying to write something about the transformative power of defiant acts in protest – civil disobedience, the removal of racist monuments, etc. The lyrics really opened up to me when I came back to them 3 years later and brought them into the realm of my personal experience to say something else entirely.

Watch Trace Mountains’ Paste Session from 2018 below.