The Mountain Goats will reissue All Hail West Texas on CD, LP and digital in the US on July 23 and in Europe on August 6. Read a very cool piece about the record by Matt Fraction over at John Darnielle’s Tumblr, and John posted a few words at Mountain-Goats.com.

The last of the “all-home-recordings albums” by the Mountain Goats and the only one about which that claim is true, All Hail West Texas was originally released as a free-standing compact disc on the late, lamented Emperor Jones. That was about a decade ago. The songs were originally transferred from the cassettes onto which they were recorded to 1/4” reels at Tiny Telephone by Alex Newport, who also played in Fudge Tunnel. John got really excited when he realized his tapes were being EQ’d by the guy from Fudge Tunnel.

Remastered from those reels, along with 7 unearthed songs from the two surviving contemporaneous cassettes, All Hail West Texas stands as the peak of the Mountain Goats’ home recording era, a time people like to refer to as “when John Darnielle had his four-track,” except John did not actually use a four-track. He used the condenser mic of a Panasonic boombox and there was no overdubbing. All songs recorded on the day they were written, usually within minutes of the actual composition. Highlights include “Jenny,” “Fall of the Star High School Running Back,” and “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” a song that has compelled audiences around the globe to yell “Hail Satan,” and to mean it.

Package art features a newly penned 1,800-word essay by John detailing his songwriting and recording process for the album. The LP is packaged in a deluxe gatefold jacket and includes a digital download of the full record plus the seven additional tracks. Also, this will be the first time All Hail West Texas has been available on LP. The CD, which includes the full album and extra tracks on one disc, comes in a premium digipak with a 12-page booklet.

Pre-order All Hail West Texas now on CD and LP. Follow the Mountain Goats on Twitter and keep up with John Darnielle on Tumblr. See John & Peter on an all-ages duo tour beginning June 3 in Washington, DC. Tickets are going fast!

The Mountain Goats on tour:
* = w/ The Baptist Generals
June 3 Washington, DC 9:30 Club*
June 4 York, PA Strand- Capitol Performing Arts*
June 5 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s*
June 7 New Haven, CT Center Church on the Green*
June 8 Portland, ME Port City Music Hall*
June 9 South Burlington, VT Higher Ground Ballroom*
June 11 Munhall, PA Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead*
June 12 Detroit, MI Majestic Theatre*
June 14 Cincinnati, OH Taft Ballroom*
June 15 Bloomington, IN Buskirk-Chumley Theatre*
June 16 Evanston, IL Space*
June 17 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall*
June 19 Kansas City, MO The Record Bar*
June 20 St. Louis, MO Old Rock House*
June 22 Birmingham, AL The Bottletree*
June 23 Gainesville, FL High Dive*
June 24 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room*
June 26 Charleston, SC The Charleston Pourhouse *
June 27 West Columbia, SC New Brookland Tavern*
June 28 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox *
July 26-28 Newport, RI Newport Folk Festival
September 13-16 Miami, FL Atlantic Ocean Comedy and Music Festival

The Mountain Goats premiered the new video for “Cry for Judas” at Pitchfork TV.

Directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis and shot last month in upstate New York, the “Cry for Judas” video is described by Pitchfork as an “emotional rollercoaster.” Mirabella-Davis wrote and directed the short film Knife Point, and co-directed and produced the feature documentary The Swell Season.

The band kicked off the first leg of their U.S. tour last night in Richmond, VA and have already sold out all four of their New York shows next week.

Darnielle of the Mountain Goats recently filmed performances of “Harlem Roulette” off Transcendental Youth along the New York City waterfront for Pitchfork.tv and WNYC’s Souncheck where he performed: “In Memory of Satan”, “White Cedar”, “Counterfeit Florida Plates” off the new album, along with “Thank You Mario, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle”. Darnielle also performed four songs for Gothamist House Presents including “Harlem Roulette”, “Cry for Judas”, “No Children” and “Raja Vocative”.

Transcendental Youth is available now on CD, LP, and digital in the Merge store.

The Mountain Goats on tour:
Oct 10 Baltimore, MD The Ottobar*
Oct 11 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts*
Oct 13 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg*
Oct 14 Brooklyn Music Hall of Williamsburg*
Oct 15 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom*
Oct 16 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom*
Oct 18 Boston House of Blues*
Oct 19 Ithaca, NY The Haunt*
Oct 20 Toronto, ON Phoenix Concert Theatre*
Oct 22 Grand Rapids, MI Covenant Fine Arts Center*
Oct 23 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theatre*
Oct 24 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theatre*
Oct 26 Iowa City, IA The Blue Moose TapHouse*
Oct 27 Chicago, IL Vic Theatre*
Nov 4 Huntington, WV Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center (Mountain Stage)
Nov 29 Atlanta, GA Terminal West*
Nov 30 Asheville, NC Grey Eagle*
Dec 1 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge*
Dec 3 Tulsa, OK Cain’s Ballroom*
Dec 4 Dallas, TX Granada Theatre*
Dec 5 Austin, TX Emo’s East*
Dec 7 Sante Fe, NM Santa Fe Brewing Co.*
Dec 8 Phoenix, AZ The Crescent Ballroom*
Dec 9 Tucson, AZ Club Congress*
Dec 10 San Diego, CA Irenic*
Dec 13 Los Angeles, CA Troubadour*
Dec 14 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore*
Dec 16 Portland, OR Aladdin Theatre*
Dec 17 Seattle, WA The Showbox*
*w/ Matthew E. White

The Mountain Goats announce the first leg of their fall tour, kicking off October 9 in Richmond, Virginia. Opening for the Mountain Goats will be Matthew E. White, who wrote the horn arrangements for the band’s forthcoming release, Transcendental Youth.

Matthew E. White, described by Stereogum as “bring[ing] together the warm, haunted tones of Leonard Cohen, Terry Riley, and Dr. John,” will be performing his debut album Big Inner with a 9-piece band; his horn section, in this special tour engagement, will join in the Mountain Goats’ set. John Darnielle writes of the collaboration: “One of my fondest memories of the Transcendental Youth recording sessions is listening in the control room as Matthew and his players brought his horn arrangements to life on the other side of the glass. Me and Peter and Jon just sat there with our jaws on the floor. We can’t wait to hear it come together live.”

Before the tour kicks off, the Mountain Goats will play a covers and rarities set at the Hopscotch Music Festival September 7 in Raleigh, NC. Then on October 6 in Durham, NC, the Mountain Goats will perform the program Transcendental Youth with the world-renowned vocal quartet, Anonymous 4. Five songs from Transcendental Youth, in special vocal arrangements by Owen Pallett, serve as the hub of the program, which also spans the catalog of both the Mountain Goats and Anonymous 4. The program was performed earlier this year at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City and at The Barbican in London.

Hear the first single “Cry for Judas” now on the Merge SoundCloud page, and pre-order Transcendental Youth now on CD and LP in the Merge store.

The Mountain Goats on tour:
Sept 1 Livermore, CA Wente Vineyards Estate Winery%
Sept 7 Raleigh, NC Fletcher Opera Theatre (Hopscotch Music Festival)
Oct 6 Durham, NC Reynolds Industries Theatre w/ Anonymous 4
Oct 9 Richmond, VA The National*
Oct 10 Baltimore, MD The Ottobar*
Oct 11 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts*
Oct 14 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg*
Oct 15 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom*
Oct 18 Boston, MA House of Blues*
Oct 19 Ithaca, NY The Haunt*
Oct 20 Toronto, ON Phoenix Concert Theatre*
Oct 22 Grand Rapids, MI The Ladies Literary Club*
Oct 23 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theatre*
Oct 24 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theatre*
Oct 26 Iowa City, IA The Blue Moose TapHouse*
Oct 27 Chicago, IL Vic Theatre*
% The Dodos
*w/ Matthew E. White

The Mountain Goats will release Transcendental Youth on October 2, 2012.

Read more about the album from John Hodgman below and from John Darnielle himself at mountain-goats.com.

Pre-orders of Transcendental Youth will be available in the Merge store beginning July 25 with a special surprise, so stay tuned!

Biographical details that I have personally observed regarding John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats

John Darnielle is a human male and American musician who was born in Indiana.

Alone or in collaboration with others, he has been known as the Mountain Goats since 1991.

He grew up in Central California, and has lived in many states, but now lives in North Carolina with his wife and child and at least one cat that I have observed.

I visited his home in the year 2011. I took off my shoes when I came in the door because that is my habit. No one made me do it.

John Darnielle’s house is not rockstar huge, nor rockstar glamorous. It does not have a home theater or rolfing center. It’s modest.

There is an office packed with shelves reflecting his preoccupations: pulp horror and philosophy and religious study. John Darnielle is fascinated with both death metal and the Holy Bible and speaks eloquently of the dark magic and elegance and grace of both.

Now I am going to tell you that, in the study by the stairs, I stepped in a little bit of cat vomit.

I can report that John Darnielle was not embarrassed. Because he knows it is in a cat’s nature to vomit, and because he saw an opportunity for kindness. He loaned me some socks, and they were argyle, warm from the dryer and very soft.

The house has a basement, which John Darnielle describes as “awesome.”

The basement is not particularly awesome. (I have seen some awesome basements.) It has some drums and guitars in it but otherwise is a fairly typical basement of a modest, middle-class home. Normal.

It is my impression that this may be why John Darnielle considers his basement to be awesome, for such normality was not necessarily going to be his fate.

Inside the basement is a box of a limited-edition, alternate vinyl version of his album The Sunset Tree, which came out in 2005. Each one is hand-painted by John: white sleeve traced with naïve snakes and swirls of bright color.

John Darnielle told me that he made these when things were going well in his career, but he was still not convinced he was going to make it…when he still thought he might have to go back to psychiatric nursing, which is what he did when he started writing and recording songs.

Those first recordings, you may have read, were made on a simple cassette recorder. And those tapes of just him plus guitar are full of hiss and urgency. They were made for one reason. Like these hand-painted LPs, even if all else failed, they were going to get out there, no matter what.

He has written almost 600 songs now, and some of them are very sad, dealing with hard drugs and tragic ends, hurting yourself and others, sicknesses of both body and brain, off-brand alcohols. They are told in beautiful, unnerving, specific detail, because John Darnielle is a very good writer, and also some of them are just true stories about his own life.

But many have noted that John Darnielle seems often very happy, and his demeanor on stage is almost exclusively unhaunted, ecstatic.

Anyone who reads his Twitter feed knows he takes great delight in his delights: vegan cooking, fat babies, hockey, the beautiful alchemy of Chemex coffee, Anonymous 4, playing music for people, loaning out socks when the time comes, basements.

These are the consolations; and if some of his songs suggest that there are real hells on earth, other songs remind that the heavens are equally close at hand.

(Sometimes they are even the same songs.)

It is my impression that this is the ecstasy John Darnielle is feeling: that thrill of having survived, escaped for even a second to enjoy those small transcendent delights, and to sing of them.

And I can report that if you are standing in the basement with John Darnielle and wondering how he survived this far, to stand happy in this heavenly basement, you may look down at the hand-painted album of songs you are holding and realize the answer is in your hand.

Like that album, TRANSCENDENTAL YOUTH is full of songs about people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won’t stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them.

I can report that it is a very good album and has many more instruments on it than those early tapes, including Peter Hughes on bass, Jon Wurster on drums, and, for the first time, a full horn section. And all of this makes a very joyous noise.

Everything I have written here is true, to the best of my knowledge.

I am not giving back the socks.

That is all.

John Hodgman
2012