Photos: Foot Ox Releases TOPANGA CANYON Album via Lauren Records

Portland experimental folk band Foot Ox has released a new album, Topanga Canyon, a record written after songwriter Teague Cullen was invited to spend a week recording at the California canyon home of Germaine Dunes and Buck Meek. The album is out now via Lauren Records.

Stream Topanga Canyon here.

After connecting with Dunes through mutual friends, Cullen was invited to make a record at the home she shares with Meek and their dog, Ringo, using a collection of instruments and recording equipment left behind between sessions. With a date suddenly on the calendar, Cullen wrote the songs over the course of a single spring.

The songs on Topanga Canyon came together quickly, often as stream-of-consciousness observations rather than linear stories. Cullen brought them to California, where the album was tracked mostly live with the band playing together whenever possible. The vocal booth was the front porch overlooking the canyon. Birds, airplanes, wind, conversation, and the sounds of the house itself made their way onto the recordings and were left there.

The sessions also became a meeting place for old friends and new collaborators. Grant Bubar of AJJ joined on drums after years of friendship that began on tour, while Oregon Foot Ox bandmates Connor Farrell and K Cashion arrived after months of rehearsing the material. Eva Leach and Jim Rhian of Pigeon Pit traveled down from Washington, contributing fiddle and pedal steel, while Andrew Dorsett of Lake played piano, Jill Ryan added flute, and longtime friend Zach Burba of iji contributed keyboards, bongos, and more.

Recorded, engineered, and produced by Germaine Dunes and Carly Bond of Sound & Hearing at Ringo Bingo!, the album became increasingly collaborative as the week unfolded. Dunes helped shape the sessions from behind the console while also becoming a recurring voice throughout the record, singing on most of its songs.

The sessions eventually expanded into hundreds of hours of recordings, including alternate takes, improvisations, conversations, and small moments that could not be recreated. Cullen spent months sorting through and mixing the material before returning to Los Angeles, where David Jerkovich helped complete the final mixes and master the album. Conversations with Stephen Steinbrink also helped inspire the record's unusually wide stereo image, giving Topanga Canyon an expansive quality that recalls albums made in the canyon decades earlier.

Topanga Canyon Tracklist

Rubber Band

August

Prairie Song

Ringo!

Church (in a box)

Living Room

Hay Francis

Cattle Call

Sagittariat

Denver

Chickenwire

Karma of Our Times

Build Fires

New Age Dolphins in the Canyon

About Foot Ox

Foot Ox is an experimental folk band from Portland, Oregon, originally formed by songwriter Teague Cullen in Tempe, Arizona, in 2007. More than a fixed lineup, Foot Ox has always been a revolving door of friends and collaborators, with each recording taking shape around the people who happen to be in the room. The current incarnation brings together musicians from Kisser, AJJ, Pigeon Pit, iji, Lake, and Meernaa, alongside longtime Foot Ox members, creating a sound that is intimate, adventurous, and quietly psychedelic. Inspired by dreams and old films, the songs drift through love, grief, humor, landscapes, and hope using abstract imagery and subtle, unconventional arrangements. Whether stripped down to intimate folk songs or swelling into a full band, Foot Ox has always embraced contrast, allowing each record to become a document of the friendships that made it possible.

Photo Credit: Sean Bonnette