Richmond Fontaine (US)

“Fleeing Las Vegas and her abusive boyfriend, Allison Johnson moves to Reno, intent on making a new life for herself. But haunted by the mistakes of her past her only comfort seems to come from the imaginary conversations she has with her hero, Paul Newman. But, as life crawls on and she finds work slowly the chance of a new life begins to emerge”.

The Arena Rock Record Company has signed Portland’s Richmond Fontaine and will release the band’s new album “We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River” in September 2009. “We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River” follows on from the band’s landmark seventh album “Thirteen Cities” (2007), the sparse, stripped down, “The Fitzgerald” (2005) and the alt country classic “Post To Wire” (2004), which was named 4th best album of the year by Uncut (behind Brian Wilson, Wilco, & Loretta Lynn). The new album, seen as the band’s most accessible yet, was produced once again by JD Foster (Calexico, Richard Buckner, Laura Cantrell), who was at the helm for the last three albums. Multi-instrumentalist Paul Brainard steps in with pedal steel, trumpet and piano and the core line up of Willy Vlautin (guitars, vocals), Sean Oldham (drums, vocals), Dave Harding (Bass) and Dan Eccles (guitars) remains.

From the album comes Richmond Fontaine’s first seven-inch single in years, a limited edition of the song “”You Can Move Back Here”, which can also be heard on the Myspace site.

Willy Vlautin’s literate lyrical style landed him a publishing deal which saw the publication of his first novel “The Motel Life” – already on its second print run and currently being made into a major motion picture. 2007 saw the publication of Willy’s highly-acclaimed second novel “Northlne”. Both novels are published by Faber and Faber.