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Way of Transport

AFTER SEVERAL long weeks on the streets, playing in the damp, smoky environs of Central Europe's cellar venues, Portlander Tom Filepp speaks in a whisper that bears hardly any resemblance to the strong if occasionally glum tones within the albums he records as Cars Trains. His whispervoice does lend verisimilitude to the concept that it's really a bedroom project. Which is not necessarily wrong writes and records in his home, doing nearly everything himself Cars Trains has grown far beyond one man's quirky experiment in electrofolk.

We Are All Fire, Cars Trains third fulllength album, conveys a sense maturity from a musician who may have receive his very own. To convey it's actually a headphones album is often a preposterous understatement. Without worrying about benefit for close listening, you miss the abundant layers of tiny percussive sounds, found noises, analog crackle, woodwinds, strings, and horns that mingle just under the top of Filepp's voice.

The album was inspired by stories, both mythological and others of Filepp's family, and then he weaves a powerful current of history throughout. On "Nations," a song with chillwave beats, strings, and muffled handclaps, he sings: "To constitute an account about ancients past/as should they were perfect, forever stood fast./There may come a period when all that's left is often a hint of any name/a few crumpled maps marking borders where nobody's been."

Filepp has long recreated his songs on stage just loops and some instruments. "Cars Trains was a a reaction to wanting to be as selfsufficient as it can be," he admits that. "I had an assignment where I might pick-up a different instrument yearly."

But for the album, he enlisted friends, folks the musical family he's acquired since living in Portland. In fact, this week's Portland album release show will be the very first time that Cars Trains plays live with a band up of friends in the Ascetic Junkies, Alameda, and Future Historians.

"There are simply some songs I can't do like around the record. Before long, it's nice to possess people involved. It makes things more organic."