The Rural Alberta Advantage Return With New Single “The Hunt In Edson” – U.S. Tour Kicks Off February 5th
Photo Credit: Jess Baumung
The Rural Alberta Advantage (The RAA) return today with a new single, “The Hunt In Edson,” released via Saddle Creek / Paper Bag Records. The track was mixed by Jay Dufour (Dierks Bentley, Jade Eagleson, Scott Helman) and arrives ahead of an upcoming run of U.S. tour dates, with the band revisiting some of their favorite clubs beginning February 5 in San Francisco [full dates below]. Earlier this week, The RAA made the difficult decision to cancel their Minneapolis tour date; a full statement can be found on the band’s Instagram. Listen to and share “The Hunt In Edson” now via YouTube.
Discussing the origins of the song, guitarist and vocalist Nils Edenloff reflects on how seemingly minor moments can take on unexpected weight in the songwriting process:
“I’m always surprised how the small events in life worm their way into our songs, or even multiple moments that seem unrelated at the time.
Several years ago on a beautiful summer morning, my wife woke me up with a jolt when she realized that our cat Edson had brought a mouse into our bed. As surprised as I was, the mouse in Edson’s jaw was even more surprised when it was dropped and hit the bed, having been granted a new lease on life.
From there, the mouse scurried up my leg trying to make a break for freedom and ended up behind the bed. The next several minutes involved a comical level chaos between us all, before I managed to trap the mouse and release it back into the yard.
Around the same time, a friend let me know that they had received some life changing news, and opened the conversation with a quote I was unfamiliar with … ‘nothing concentrates the mind like a noose around your neck’.
Somehow, both of these unrelated events kept popping up in my head as I was working on this song, wondering what the mouse must have thought about his unlikely escape that summer morning and how much it differed from what was going through my own mind in that morning.”
“The Hunt In Edson” follows the band’s October return with “Falling Apart,” released alongside a European tour. Both singles mark the first new music since The RAA’s acclaimed fifth full-length album, The Rise & The Fall (2023), which earned praise from outlets including Stereogum, FLOOD, and The Independent, who named it one of their 30 Best Albums of 2023, writing: “Since Neutral Milk Hotel entered the wilderness, Toronto’s The Rural Alberta Advantage have been upholding the demented fuzz-folk mantle.”
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Tour Dates:
02/05 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
02/06 – W. Hollywood, CA @ The Peppermint Club
02/07 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
02/12 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle [SOLD OUT}
02/17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
02/18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
02/19 – Northampton, MA @ The Iron Horse
Links:
Official: https://www.theraa.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruralalberta
