Tapir! - The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain

South-London-based 6-piece Tapir! present their debut album, The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain (originally released by Heavenly Recordings as three four-track EPs).

The album follows a three-act structure telling the story of a solitary traveller - an ambiguous red creature known as The Pilgrim - on a journey across a mythical landscape of eerie forests, stormy seas and unholy mountains populated by beasts, injured birds and idealised eidolons. A fantastical offbeat fable carried along by Gray’s crisp, heartfelt vocals and the band’s instinctive, idiosyncratic melodies, the project at times feels like the musical equivalent of the paintings of Henry Darger, Henri Rousseau or Philip Guston.
 
With this debut album, Tapir! have proven they are more than technically adept at transporting the listener to another realm. You could read the whole album as being an escape from the trappings of the modern material world, a sidestep into a pre-industrial, pre-internet wonderland where creativity and community reign supreme. The narrator of ‘My God’ might suggest to us ‘Maybe it was Maybelline that put you at a loss/That’s my God’, but for Tapir! it is imagination itself that is king.

+ Exclusive Dinked Edition 266: Crystal Clear Vinyl + Alternative “Colour-Me-In” Artwork + Signed & Numbered Print.