THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH Announces New Album JUST BEYOND ENDLESS MOUNTAIN
New single Deliver Me From Trying draws on Swedish folk traditions from Matsson's native Dalarna.
Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, who performs as THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH, has announced a new album titled JUST BEYOND ENDLESS MOUNTAIN, set for release on Anti- Records. The album features cover artwork by photographer Anton Corbijn and follows Matsson's return to his native Dalarna region in central Sweden, where he began revisiting the polskas, field recordings, and folk traditions of his childhood. Alongside the announcement, Matsson has released a new single, Deliver Me From Trying, accompanied by a video filmed in the Swedish countryside.
About halfway through the record, driving guitar & propulsive drumming provide the backdrop for the new single out today, 'Deliver Me from Trying', as distorted vocals reveal a message of longing to let go. 'When I listened back to it, I thought, 'Yeah... okay. Good job, Kristian. You didn't really know what you were doing there.' Deliver Me from Trying—just let me stop trying. That line just appeared, and it wasn't until later that I realized what it meant. It says a lot about where I was at.'
Filmed in the Swedish countryside among the region's beautiful flora and fauna, the song's new video is out now.
Dalarna is the place Swedes return to, again and again, to reconnect with their past, for better and for worse. This is where Matsson grew up during the 1980s and '90s, surrounded by fiddlers and folk dancers, timber cabins and flower-clad Midsummer poles. You learned the dances in school, the music too, and every national holiday was celebrated with folk musicians, traditional dress, and the folk games that had been passed down for generations. It is as if the landscape itself had internalized the nation's longing for some primordial refuge—a place to retreat whenever modernity had gone too far and, in the process, taken its own people hostage.
Matsson, however, refused to be captured so easily. He started indie bands, hurled himself across the stage like Iggy Pop, and spent his winters snowboarding. His teenage love of unruly rock gave way to an obsession with American blues and folk music. Then came the breakthrough: extensive tours, festival stages, steadily growing audiences, increasingly ambitious recordings, the move to America, and the constant pendulum swing between performing alone and wanting a full band beside him, both onstage and in the studio. Twenty wild years have passed since he released his first EP.
But something changed when he finally stopped moving. A new chapter began. Dalarna became home in the truest sense. Matsson's farm became his fortress, and the home studio, that had sometimes stood silent, once again became a place where inspiration could rush in—and where freedom opened new windows. He started a garden, bought shares in a few horses, and picked up an ATV to clear the snow from his driveway. And then he bought even more instruments. The fiddle — an instrument he'd had a complicated relationship with since childhood — found its way back into his life. He picked it up hesitantly but soon became obsessed. Now, he opens his concerts with a polska by Pål Olle of Östbjörka.
'Somewhere along the way I'd developed this immature aversion to the whole cultural inheritance I grew up with,' Matsson explains. 'But now I live here again. I've read an incredible amount—not just about the music, but about how people actually lived in the old days. I think that's part of why this record feels more like me than anything I've made before. This album really comes from somewhere.'
Just after the album's release this fall Matsson will begin a cross-country US tour on October 15 in Saxapahaw, North Carolina.
Tracklist
1. The Wildest of His Dreams
2. Colors
3. We Got The Pony
4. Scully, It's Me
5. Just Beyond Endless Mountain
6. Overboda
7. Deliver Me From Trying
8. Times
9. The Forest Keeper
10. In The Silver Wire Up The Hill
11. The Village
Tour Dates
Aug 26 – Dublin, IE @ National Concert Hall
Aug 27 – Cork, IE @ Live At St. Luke's
Aug 28 – Bangor, UK – Open House Festival 2026
Aug 29 – Kilkenny, IE @ Cathedral Church of St. Canice & Round Tower
Sept 12 – Stockholm, Sweden @ SuperTraditional Festival
Oct 15 – Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom
Oct 16 – Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
Oct 17 – Washington DC @ Lincoln Theatre
Oct 18 – Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
Oct 20 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Oct 21 – Boston, MA @ Royale
Oct 23 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
Oct 24 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
Oct 25 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
Oct 27 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
Oct 28 – Maquoketa, IA @ Codfish Hollow Barnstormers
Oct 29 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Oct 30 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
Nov 1 – Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theatre
Nov 2 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Commonwealth
Nov 4 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall
Nov 5 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
Nov 6 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore
Nov 8 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
Nov 10 – San Francisco, CA @ Palace of Fine Arts
Nov 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
Nov 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
Nov 14 – San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park Theatre
Nov 15 – Phoenix, AZ @ Musical Instrument Museum
Matsson has said the lyrics of Deliver Me From Trying emerged before he fully understood their meaning, describing the song as reflective of where he was at the time. JUST BEYOND ENDLESS MOUNTAIN marks a new chapter for THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH, drawing directly on the folk music traditions of Dalarna that surrounded him growing up.
