Guma - Driving the Highways of Texas
Cover Art/Design: Grace Reyer
Digital Release Date: July 15, 2022
Hot on the heels of this year’s jazz-rock odyssey A List of Sightings, Guma returns with another stylistic left turn. First single “Driving the Highways of Texas” pulls liberally from the classic outlaw country handbook, featuring pedal steel guitar, honky tonk piano, and a quasi-mariachi string quartet in a song about the perilous pavement that criss-crosses the Lone Star State. At the center of it all, T.J. Masters’s dry sense of humor and meticulous songcraft anchors the shift in sound; times change, styles go in and out, but Guma remains.
Tracklist
01. Guma - Driving the Highways of Texas
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"At KUTX, we know we’re far from the only radio station in town. And if you’ve done your fair share of channel surfing, you might’ve come across another fine listener-supported frequency, KOOP 91.7FM. For the past half decade KOOP’s been home to Small Cool World, a 90-minute weekly freeform show hosted by T.J. Masters. But like me, T.J.’s not just a DJ; he’s a musician first and foremost. As such, that ongoing stint at KOOP has overlapped with Masters’ moonlighting – a genre-divergent project called Guma. Guma evokes the same daring variety that makes Small Cool World a great listen, as already heard on two eponymous offerings (from 2016 and 2019, respectively) and A List of Sightings, which just came out this February. But apparently one record’s just not enough for T.J. in 2022, who today announced his fourth full-length, Workingman’s Guma. Even though we’ve already come to expect a Weird Al-level set of skills from Masters in terms of genre-specific recreation, WG‘s lead single definitely shifts those talents up a gear. You’ll be able to catch some of the new stuff from Guma along with Dan & Christy Foster and Sarah Barlow on Wednesday, July 27th at Sahara Lounge for Lonesome Nights – presented by KOOP and Thundercloud Subs. By that time you’ll already have a bold country addition to your commuting playlist; while the late Molly Ivins once said, “the key to happiness in Austin is to never, ever drive on I-35″, Guma opts instead to open up the throttle and roar past traffic hazards like if Roy Orbison was a modern-day tailgater on “Driving the Highways of Texas”."
- KUTX