Tenth Mountain Division Independently Releases Their Third Studio Album
Butte La Rose — June 18, 2021
Produced By Tim Carbone at Silo Sound Studio in Denver
Available now to stream or purchase→ https://outnow.io/t/buttelarose
BOULDER, Colo. — Colorado-based band Tenth Mountain Division is excited to independently release their latest album, Butte La Rose, June 18. Produced by Tim Carbone (Railroad Earth) at Silo Sound Studio in Denver, Butte La Rose captures the essence of Tenth Mountain Division—fun, danceable, and surprisingly thoughtful and heartfelt.
Photo by Mountain trout Photography
Tenth Mountain Division is built upon the long-friendship of mandolinist Winston Heuga and guitarist MJ Ouimette along with drummer Tyler Gwynn, keyboardist Campbell Thomas, and bassist Andrew Cooney. The band’s electro-acoustic sound is a high-energy fusion of roots-inspired, Southern Rock boogie that heads into unchartered territories. This is elevated even more with all members sharing in the songwriting, vocals, and arrangements. The band is named in honor of the famed military unit the 10th Mountain Division, the WWII pioneers of mountain combat who founded Vail, CO and many other ski areas across the country.
Ouimette calls the 10-track album, “a snapshot of TMD’s last year of touring fused with new offerings that will intrigue the ear with stylistic diversity, unified by the personality etched in each song.”
With song premieres in JamBase (“Highland Morning” Featuring Elliott Peck), Glide Magazine (“Got Too Excited”), and Festy GoNuts (“Sad Summer”) the album is garnering national attention. They will perform to a sold out crowd at the Mishawaka Amphitheater on the night of the album’s release.
What People Are Saying About Tenth Mountain Division and Butte La Rose:
“…the band’s got chops, and though Butte La Rose might feel unpredictable, it’s surely a recipe for an interesting live show.” —BandWagon Magazine, Kevin Johnston
“eclectic and rootsy” —Westword, Nick Hutchison
“Brimming with bright and hopeful horns, [‘Got Too Excited’] finds the band tapping into a soulful sound that brings to mind the bluegrass-soul-rock stylings of acts like the Gourds… Andrew Cooney commands the spotlight with his big, vibrant vocals that balance swagger and humbleness.” —Glide Magazine
“Not only did they evolve musically, the band also tackled some deeper subjects on their new album. Introspectively reflecting on questions such as self-doubt, depression, and death, the band demonstrate versatility and growth in their songwriting… Balancing those deeper reflections with hip shakers and head bangers, Butte La Rose has something for everyone. As it weaves its way through a variety of sonic stylings, the album tells a story. One that is unapologetically the rockin’ Tenth Mountain Division sound.” —MP3 Mag, Reed Albrittain
“‘Get Out of My Head’ is soulful, somber, and subtly strong. It includes producer Tim Carbone (Railroad Earth) on backing vocals. It’s quite an effective audio offering.” —Steemit, Will Phoenix
“The experience of listening to TMDs new record, Butte La Rose, instantly takes me to a place. I feel like I’m on the bus, windows down, cruising through the south. But something’s different: there’s no time, decade, or era… the mood is simultaneously classic, modern, happy, sad, earthy, and intergalactic. TMD and Carbone have tapped into a new level of artistry and creativity that will undoubtedly lead to great things in the future.” —Erik Deutsch (The Chicks, Leftover Salmon, Shooter Jennings)
“’Sad Summer’ has a playful hook and surf-pop beat that would fit right in on a 60’s ‘Best of the Beach’ album. Still, it maintains a modern groove and creative sound that will have a new generation of music lovers dancing along.” —Festy GoNuts
“It’s a tie dye swirl of edgy yet familiar sounds and great songs. All of the musicianship and singing is on point.” —Jeremy Garrett (The Infamous Stringdusters)
“soaked with American flavor” —JP’s Music Blog, Jim Pasinski
“Butte La Rose is a freewheeling road-trip through the soul of American music with visits to Bourbon Street, the California coast, and all-night mountain parties in their Colorado home, as the band speeds down the highway carrying a trunk full of good times with Lowell George riding shotgun and Leftover Salmon hanging out the window.” —Tim Newby, Americana UK
When asked how the future was looking for the band with live music venues opening back up across the country, Heuga said in an interview with Denver’s Westword “It’s looking up. We’re seeing a lot of offers coming in for festivals and other dates, and we’re happy to be getting out from under COVID. Because of the pandemic, it was almost a four-year process just to get this album done. We’re really excited to finally have it out there.”
This is a big shift from the previous year in which Gwynn tells The Colorado Sound, “The pandemic was a real shock to the system for the band and us as individuals. We went from having a headlining Bluebird Theater show and a six-week tour around the US, seeing a different city every night, to not being able to leave the house. It put a lot of things on pause for us. That being said, it wasn’t all negative. It gave us a chance to catch our breaths and look at our creative enterprise from simply the musical standpoint. With no shows at first, we could really dive into the new tunes we have been working on the last year or so. When we were able to actually record them at Silo Studios a few months ago it was clear we had evolved and grown as a band in a short time.”
Ouimette recounts, “Summer of 2020 saw a greater understanding of the precautions one could take to better arms oneself against contracting the virus, which in turn allowed Todd, Tim, and us to strategize a Covid-safe plan to get the album back into production. In June, at Silo Sound, we spent 7 days recording the remainder of Butte La Rose. It’s our third album, but man does this one feel different. The quality is higher, the songs are stronger and it really SOUNDS the way a lot of the songs have in my head, which is the ultimate in creative realization.”
“Making Butte La Rose with Tenth Mountain Division was like being a kid in a candy store,” says Carbone. “The songs all have their own personality and the band was open to exploring new sounds and ways to approach how each song was recorded. The spirit of wanting to get the essence of each song permeated the sessions and I hear it every time I listen to it. And we all had a blast!”
TMD has always loved having horn sections sit in throughout the years, so it was only fitting to record a few songs with horns on the record. Ouimette elaborates, “Tim was on the same wavelength and knew just the crew. Due to Covid, we actually had to stay out of the studio while the horn players were recording. It was a really cool experience to not be involved in the recording of the horn lines of our own songs and then seeing how much the energy and the whole song had changed afterwards.”
Bringing together some of the hottest horns from the area—Scott Flynn (ODESZA) on trombone, Gabriel Mervine (Lettuce, Karl Denson, The Colorado Symphony) on trumpet, and Nathan Peoples (Coral Creek) on saxophone—the results of these sessions can be heard on two of the albums stand out tracks: the album’s fiery opener “Hot Sweaty South,” and deeper into the album, with it’s classic Memphis soul vibes from the horns to the hook, “Got Too Excited.”
Synth-pop meets surf-rock in a melancholic lament about the pitfalls of heartbreak in “Sad Summer,” while the powerful and somber “Get Out of My Head,” “Burning Heart,” and the eerie final track, “Big Blue Sky” run deep and dark.
Taking a different turn and bringing forth a lighter mood are the subtly sweet “Highland Morning,” featuring special guest Elliott Peck (Midnight North) on harmony vocals; the inspiring and hopeful instrumental epic “Spring Chicken;” the slick guitar and bass rocker, “Drown You With the Bottle; and the groovin’ “Girl Like You.”
Tenth Mountain Division released their debut album, Cracks in the Sky in 2016, followed in 2018 by In Good Company. In September of 2020, Tenth Mountain Division released a stand alone single and animated music video music video for their single “9 to 5.” The band also created their own music and comedy webisode series, TMDtv, which they aired during the fall of 2020.
More information about Tenth Mountain Division:
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