Drunken Prayer

The Name Of The Ghost Is Home by Drunken Prayer

DRUNKEN PRAYER (AKA Morgan Geer) is releasing his sixth full-length album, THE NAME OF THE GHOST IS HOME
Co-produced by Paul Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Royal Trux) on Fluff and Gravy Records

The Name of the Ghost is Home, the new album by Drunken Prayer, transcends the bounds of Americana. This is music that could have emerged from a highly blissed-out biker bar or at a swampy ashram. For the last year Morgan Geer has been working from his home studio building on tracks initially recorded in Albuquerque, NM at Empty House Studios, home of doom metal bands like OM and Sleep. The end result evokes an ominous feedback-and-driftwood aesthetic.

There’s something Whitmanesque about all of this: the particle subsumed into the cosmic swirl, the beautiful crass open road; like a film score for a road movie of the mind.

A descendent of 2019’s Mitch Easter produced Cordelia Elsewhere and the spaced-out death-raga Electric Daddyland of 2021, The Name of the Ghost is Home finishes the trinity not with angst or a sentimental tear, but smirking testaments from a series of characters, each taking a different road to get to the same familiar place. Coming to terms with the most rebellious of their family, they arrive at the same grave with a fistful of immortelle, ready to move on.

The core group of musicians on this record are Morgan Geer, who plays most of the instruments and sings, and the ABQ experimental duo GRAL: Greg Williams playing percussion and Alex McMahon on synth and pedal steel guitars. Williams and McMahon are also frequent members of Americana icons The Handsome Family. Filling out and classing up the sound is Aaron Price on piano, J.J. Tourville (Deslondes) playing fiddles, and the aforementioned Eric Slick (Dr Dog) on electric keys. The fresh-off-the-clothesline voice of background vocalist Christa de Mayo is the spoonful of sugar that helps the album’s more bitter pills go down.

Morgan Geer has lived and played in nearly every region of the country and sounds like it. Born in San Francisco to idealistic Alabama runaways, Morgan grew up traveling around the US following his folk-singing mother.

Over the past six years Morgan has played over a thousand shows in 18 countries, and across the US at venues such as the Newport Folk Festival, Pickathon Music Festival and San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Morgan Geer’s music has been featured on AMC, NPR, KCRW, WFMU and Little Steven’s Underground Garage on SiriusXM.