EPK – Tumbleweed Dealer – Dark Green (2025)
Publicist – Jon Asher – jon[@]ashermediarelations[.]com
“We think the evolution between our third album, released 8 years ago, and this new one will surprise some people. We didn’t write a follow-up to our last record. Instead, we incubated the band’s sound and sped up its evolution. If we kept on pace to release an album every year like we did at first, this would’ve been the 10th one. But we had kids, and that slowed down the process—so this is an evolutionary leap forward that might be jarring. We think that anyone who enjoyed our previous releases will still find what they liked in our sound while enjoying the new variety we’ve brought to it.” – Tumbleweed Dealer
“We used to write songs as soundtracks to imaginary scenes in non-existent movies. We’d set the mood, and the title would sum up the vibe so the listener could imagine the scene. With the new album, we tried to fit a whole darn movie in every track. And not just a regular movie: I want people to feel at the end of a song the same way I felt when I first finished watching Memento. Amazing, confused, baffled by all the twists and turns, and obliged to start back at the beginning in order to go through that emotional ride again, now that they know where the rainbow ends. I want every song to be enjoyable, yet never predictable. I want to reward the repeat listeners with audio easter eggs you can’t pick up on during a first listen, so they can get engrossed deeper in the musical swamp we’ve created, kind of the same way I discover something new every time I rewatch Breaking Bad, even if it’s been 7 or 8 times already.” – Seb Painchaud – Bass & Guitars – Tumbleweed Dealer
For fans of Elder, Ohm, Camel, Opeth, Cynic, Rush
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“The epic song (Dark Green) is a good indication of what the rest of the record holds, which is plenty of blues, psychedelia, and prog rock.” – Decibel Magazine
“Canada’s Tumbleweed Dealer take listeners on a rich auditory adventure on Dark Green” – The Prog Space
“How about a new prog-rock instrumental?! The title track “Dark Green” from the forthcoming album has arrived from progressive stoner rockers, TUMBLEWEED DEALER and we’re digging it. We’ve also had the opportunity to preview the new album and it’s also a strong statement and should sit well with prog lovers. Keep an eye out for the album to be released on Feb. 7th and catch the single “Dark Green” now on your Home for the Best New Rock…” – WJOE – Findlay’s Home for Rock & Roll
“an enjoyable album from Tumbleweed Dealer, an album that’s totally not your run of the mill psych/prog/stoner release and not afraid to take chances and do something different. Oh, and the cover art is damn glorious! 4/5″ – Sea of Tranquility
“There’s no denying that ‘DARK GREEN’ is a demanding listen. Its narrative ambition and instrumental sprawl ask a lot from the audience. But that’s the point. TUMBLEWEED DEALER isn’t chasing playlist placements—they’re building worlds. And with ‘DARK GREEN’, they’ve built a world you can lose yourself in… or get lost for good.8/10″ – Infrared Magazine
“Tumbleweed Dealer’s Dark Green takes one on a swampy odyssey that blends cinematic storytelling with an intricate fusion of styles. Released eight years after their last album, the ambitious project feels less like a follow-up and more like an evolutionary leap. The band retains its roots in southern-tinged stoner rock while weaving in progressive, post-punk, and jazz influences to craft a truly genre-defying sound.” – Amplify The Noise
“Tumbleweed Dealer’s refusal to conform to predictable patterns is a defining strength of Dark Green. Seb Painchaud’s vision to “fit a whole movie in every track” results in an album that feels immersive yet fresh with each listen. Whether through the melancholic duality of “Moss On The Mind” or the visceral energy of “Dragged Across The Wetlands,” the record balances technical sophistication with emotional resonance. Dark Green is an intricate musical journey that celebrates Tumbleweed Dealer’s growth while challenging genre conventions and a record that rewards those willing to step into its murky depths.” – Amplify The Noise
“a bold evolution of their signature blend of bluesy desert rock and progressive experimentation.” – Montreal Rocks
“10 tracks of instrumental/semi-instrumental music that fuses prog, stoner, blues, sludge and more into one astonishing and surprising sonic trip!” – Loud Enough? Magazine
“Dark Green is, as I’ve mentioned, a welcoming return to the Dealer’s home planet. The future seems certain to see what the trio will do next. Their continuous sound has been putting listeners into a trance, not knowing what will happen in the weeks, months, and years to come. It might be the album’s answer to the Midnight Movies of the late ‘60s and 1970s where it still continues to thrive, and we got something special with this bad boy.” – Echoes & Dust
“This is one of those compositions that requires total immersion. Clean singing, bah who needs singing at all?! Recorded with finetuned care so you can hear all the little fret squeaks before they ramp up the ambience straight from a John Frusciante record. With synths and other keys that chameleon-ize said maestro’s voice, later emulating the sound of a backing choir that then morphs into church organ. When the atmospherics basking in the background saunter forth, the darker shades of green start to realize and the track enters the domain of prog royalty. As a double kick is racing the throbbing-for-the-last-gasp procreative releases of the bass before flamenco-picking a Morricone lick ghosted into a pregnant silence to just nod for the memory of a note that enticingly lures like an anglerfish with, “you ready for more?” The timestamp at termination is 4:51 but this is some form of dimension-manipulating chronomancy because the track feels like it is over quicker than Napalm Death’s “You Suffer.” That means I’m either suffering from THC-induced crapulence or my favorite drug just happens to be music; and when it’s layered this well, with so much to encounter on repeat listens, it can truly have the magical property of transcendental transportation.” – No Clean Singing
“Epoustou-magoric! A new word was needed to describe this euphoric and inventive music. It will not be performed live, too densely stratified with a number of guitars of up to 8 in different chords. Raised to the level of a masterpiece, the work combines musical inspiration with the theme of ecological reflection and its graphic representation of nature. This globality facilitates a chimerical immersion, more lively than a virtual reality headset, even augmented. The effect felt becomes fascinating and so catchy that we have to see the adventure through to the end. A true dealer of twirling dreams!” – Concert Monkey
“A disc that could well be from the psychedelic 70’s. Here, diverse musical styles merge into one another Some jazz, some funk combined in a costume of the psychedelic, progressive genre, make a very idiosyncratic album. In some phases of the tracks I had to draw a stylistic comparison to the Krautrockers from „Amon Düll II“. Self-indulgent compositions give the album a limit that is not easy to recognize. Overall, entertaining and recommended. 7.5 out of 10 Hellfire points should be fair.” ” – Hellfire Magazin
“Canadian band Tumbleweed Dealer are out with the album “Dark Green”, and progressive rock is the style explored on this production. It is quite an amalgam of a creation this one, with old and new sounds and traditions combined in a dreamladen yet suitably challenging brew. Gentle but quirky guitar details of the kind that makes me think of Robert Fripp is a bit of a recurring element here, and arguably a bit of a defining feature. But more expressive sections that grabs hold of some jazz conventions is a part of this landscape too, alongside dreamladen and mellow moods and atmospheres of the kind that brings associations to classic era Camel at their most appealing. Contemporary electronic textures are applied along the way here too, but with ear candy also for those who love the Mellotron and the classic organ sounds. With everything lightly seasoned by psychedelic music elements and a little bit of a possibly folk music influx.” – Progressor
““Dark Green” is an excellent album” – Plus PROG de Vous
“I do really dig when they unleash the Organ on tracks like Moss On The Mind and A Soul Made Of Sludge. They give the drummer some love on the cool track Body Of The Bog. I also enjoy how this is an instrumental record where all the songs are relatively short, creating a nice flow to the album, especially for those with short attention spans. Dark Green is a mixed bag to me. There is some cool instrumentation and wow can these guys play… Those who like their instrumental stoner with some proggy and even jazz elements may dig this…” – Musipedia of Metal
“If you’re all about chill vibes and want something easy to listen to, Dark Green has plenty to offer with all the different keyboard textures and psychedelic sounds thrown at you atop a comfortable math rock base.” – Progressive Subway
“For me the band is unique in their style and execution of the songs. Hugely talented musicians that crafted an exciting album. This an exceptional album for the music lovers.” – Project Metal Music
“‘Dark Green’ is a bit of a musical experience really, the psychedelic and progressive nature of the music takes you on a hell of a trip, with each song expressing something completely different and sometimes pretty abstract.” – Uber Rock
““With “Dark Green”, Tumbleweed Dealer stretches the contours of the instrumental stoner in a slow, enveloping psychedelic odyssey, where every note seems to emerge from a thick fog.”” – Music Waves
“A true delight for connoisseurs of instrumental progressive rock in its most refined forms: Tumbleweed Dealer is a Canadian trio that boasts over ten years of experience on the scene, marked by important recognitions and prestigious collaborations. The band’s last studio work dates back to the distant 2016, but we can say that the long wait has been absolutely worthwhile: with Dark Green, the band has more than rewarded its fans, releasing an album that from the first to the last note stands out for its ability to evoke multicolored scenarios, fantasy, and stylistic solutions that are as daring as they are elegantly structured. In the ten chapters of the work, heavy, jazz, blues, psychedelia and much more converge: the group certainly did not impose limits when it came to allowing ample space for imagination and technical evolutions. Visionary and ambitious, the group’s fifth album shines for the intensity of its interpretation and quality level: the listening experience becomes disorienting and deep, rich in stimuli and dotted with emotionally and sensorially striking peaks. An almost essential work, and not just for the more refined palates.” – Rock Hard Italy
“Take a splash of post rock, add to it stoner and math rock, and you get this record. It’s equal parts groovy, heavy and fuzzy, channeling the best of three worlds to create a unique and convincing instrumental experience.” – Heavy Blog Is Heavy
“…plays out like a creepy western movie soundtrack being conducted by Earthless jamming with Ennio Morricone. Tumbelweed Dealer have taken the essence of a classic western and paired up it with a doom and gloom psychedelic stoner rock vibe for one thrilling ride into the unknown.” – The Sludgelord
“It’s funky, heavy, bluesy, jazzy, and psychedelic. It’s a head-bobbing, day-brightening swirl of colors, and it tastes much better than bongwater.” – No Clean Singing
[Download Album Cover | Download Album Lyrics]
Band: Tumbleweed Dealer
Album Title: Dark Green
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Label: Self-Release
Distribution: Record Union
Track Listing:
1. A Distant Figure In The Fog (2:52)
2. Sparks Adrift In The Louisiana Nightsky (3:39)
3. A Plant That Thinks It’s Human (3:34)
4. Becoming One With The Bayou (3:19)
5. Dragged Across The Wetlands (2:56)
6. Dark Green (4:48)
7. Ghosts Dressed In Weeds (5:31)
8. Moss On The Mind (3:13)
9. Body Of The Bog (6:34)
10. A Soul Made Of Sludge (3:49)
Album Recording Credits:
• All songs performed by: Tumbleweed Dealer
• All songs written by: Tumbleweed Dealer
• Produced by: Jean-Baptiste Joubaud
• Mixed by: Jean-Baptiste Joubaud
• Mastered by: Harris Newman
• Album Artwork by: Glenn Le Calvez
Album Band Line Up:
Seb Painchaud – Bass & Guitars
Angelo Fata – Drums & Percussions
Jean-Baptiste Joubaud – Synths & Programming
Guest Musicians:
Antoine Baril – Mellotron, Hammond Organ & Keyboards on tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 & 10
Guillaume Audette – Wurlitzer, Rhodes and Church Organ on tracks 8 & 10
Jocelyn Couture – Trumpet & Flugel Horn on tracks 4, 5, 7 and 9
Loïc Roy-Turgeon – Trombone on tracks 4 and 5
Zach Strouse – Saxophone on track 6
And special guest star Ceschi Ramos as himself on track 7
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About The Album Artwork:
I think the exact description I gave the artist was “What Mati Klarwein did for Miles Davis, but in a swamp instead of Africa.” I wanted to capture those surreal artworks that the prog bands had in the 70s while keeping with the theme of the album. We tried to have it done through Photoshop art at first, but ultimately, we had a painting commissioned instead.
About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY)”
We tried to capture two essential parts in Alan Moore’s retelling of Swamp Thing’s origin: Firstly, the main character’s struggle and loss of identity. We also wanted to capture the antagonist’s transformation into nature’s anger towards men. We wanted to keep all the Southern sensibilities in our sound while tackling a much more serious tone.
Track by Track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):
A Distant Figure In The Fog
We wanted to capture the ominous feeling of knowing that something is out there at the beginning of a movie, but you don’t know just what. Musically, it’s the first track I wrote after getting a mellotron-emulating guitar pedal, and I wanted to make full use of the choir settings to dial into that Fulci zombie movie soundtrack vibe.
Sparks Adrift In The Louisiana Nightsky
This song evokes the clamour of angry locals running into the marsh, torch in hand, to capture Swamp Thing. The feeling of mass hatred that is born out of incomprehension and fear inspired this track to be more complex than anything Tumbleweed Dealer has done in the past.
A Plant That Thinks It’s Human
We tried to capture the old school sci-fi vibe around the idea of someone learning that they are simply memories embedded in a new complex organism—in this case, a plant. We did that by incorporating elements of a post punk atmosphere with 80’s inspired synths so we could later contrast it with smoother progressive rock sections.
Becoming One With The Bayou
Our protagonist lays down and gives up. The rain fills up his wooden eye socket as he cannot be bothered to blink. We tried to capture the grief of this moment with a mellotron-heavy track that constantly contrasts nostalgic slower moments with angular upbeat ones.
Dragged Across The Wetlands
Swamp Thing is back! And he is pissed… Imagine having a mythical, gigantic Ent-type creature grab you by the legs and run through the swamps. Upbeat and catchy, the song’s darker melodies underlie the anger that drives it.
Dark Green
The title track meant to sum up the whole voyage. The song pauses midway and picks back up through a whirlwind of rapid tonal shifts that are meant to bewilder and confuse during a first listen, but to be rewarding on subsequent plays. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like rewatching The Usual Suspects for that plot twist, which none of our fifteen-year-old selves saw coming. It’s our Keyzer Söze.
Ghosts Dressed In Weeds
We brought in Ceschi Ramos for his unique ability to blend rap, singing and screaming. We played with the fact that, after 3 and a half instrumental albums, hearing his voice might set up the expectation that we were heading for a classic verse-chorus structured song. Of course, the aim was to shatter those expectations as soon as they set in.
Moss On The Mind
The final 3 songs lead into each other in an attempt to close off the album with an epic trilogy. Every progressive rock album needs one of those sequences! On the opening track, we created two similar chord progressions, one being major and upbeat, and the other being its minor key, sadder counterpart. We wanted to have a duality that was similar to anime theme and ending songs. The fun was in alternating between the two moods.
Body Of The Bog
This song is the “body” of the closing trilogy, hence the name. It served as a kind of depository in which we could add all the twists and turns we wanted to include on the album. What resulted is a long, charged and dense (we swear that’s not a euphemism) song that navigates through various changes. Just when you think it has completely derailed from its original starting point, the nods to the opening sequences start showing up and the track begins to take us full circle.
A Soul Made Of Sludge
A song carried by its rhythm section’s constant drive and the lush keys that hover above it, the few guitars included in the conclusion to the album are actually re-purposed melodies from the opening track. In some sense, the end of the album brings us to that slightly doubtful feeling that something is, somehow, familiar: “Isn’t this where we came in?”. We tried to showcase how stylistically far from the intro we have come, while remaining part of the overall Tumbleweed Dealer sound. What entertains our curiosity now is how much further we can push to broaden that sound.
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BAND STORY ANGLES / FUN FACTS:
1. Although the band’s name itself implies cannabis consumption, I’ve actually been completely sober for over 8 years. About 10 years or so ago, I got black out drunk with some friends in Quebec City. I woke up before anyone else, unsure of whose house I was in, saw a library with graphic novels, and grabbed the only one I had never read, which so happened to be Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing. That’s where the inspiration for the album came from
2. The album’s title came about organically. I felt inspired, but had no idea how to cut it up. All I knew was that the cover art had to be dark green. For the longest time we referred to it as The Dark Green Album. I don’t know if it’s because we realized it fit perfectly or if we just couldn’t come up with anything better, but we eventually decided that Dark Green was a keeper.
3. JB and I started to work on the album, building up demos with drum machines before Angelo joined in. His band (Hopeless Youth) recorded with JB, and since they hit it off, JB played him our demos. A few meetings later, we asked him to join.
4. The band only played a handful of live shows with a line up that entirely consisted of former or current members of Ion Dissonance.
5. The former Ion Dissonance line-up played Psycho California in 2015. The group was unreachable the day of the show, having no cell phones or laptops, and didn’t get a message that told them they were going on stage 3 hours earlier than planned. The band showed up for sound test thinking they were early only to be given rented equipment they had never used before and be thrown on stage less than 10 minutes after arriving. It’s only on stage that the guitarist realized the guitar he was given only had 21 frets while the songs were written to often utilize the 22nd one. Regardless, the band managed to play an excellent set to an enthused crowd with no idea they had been in at the venue for less than 15 minutes.
L-R – Jean-Baptiste Joubaud – Synths & Programming, Seb Painchaud – Bass & Guitars, Angelo Fata – Drums & Percussions
Photo Credit – PAULINE DELABORDE PHOTOGRAPHIE – https://www.paulinedelaborde.com/
Starting off in 2012 as a one-man digital adventure to explore Seb Painchaud’s interest in smoky, bluesy, haze-laden instrumental music, the project quickly grew into a melting pot of stoner, psychedelic, post, and math rock—an infrasonic concoction that was brewed to complement a potent mushroom trip across the desert. The band first worked with drummer Carl Borman, known associates Dopethrone’s current drummer, along with studio engineer and producer Jean-Baptiste Joubaud to record a debut, self-titled album that would establish Tumbleweed Dealer’s vision and sound.
By 2014, the band’s sophomore release, Western Horror, leaned into a cinematic direction, immersing listeners into a wordless narrative that probably belongs best to a Tarantino film. Recruiting Ion Dissonance drummer Jean Francois Richard this time around, the band crafted a much more focused, dark, and slightly dissonant version of their southern melodies.
The following release of 2016, TDIII – Tokes, Hatred & Caffeine, saw the group tightening its compositions, resulting in an album that featured a total of 12 tracks over the span of 40-minutes. Gone were the long, drawn-out build ups! Tumbleweed Dealer began to favor quickly undulating cascades of harmonies, all of which were played against a rhythm section that openly showcased a vast array of musical influences. From post-punk to shoegaze, by way of samba and funk, the new goal was to demonstrate that the Tumbleweed Dealer sound was more generally an attitude than a style to be pigeonholed into cemented genres.
While the band never actively toured, they played the occasional show. Scarce as they were, the band traveled as far as California to share their mastery of the loop station and to recreate their soundscapes in a live setting while commanding the stage with the authority of the seasoned extreme metal veterans that made up their ranks at the time.
By the time composition started for an eventual fourth album, the group’s live lineup had dissolved. What started as a simple decision to ward off the need to write music that can be recreated in front of a live audience quickly grew into what Sebastien coined a “bucket list album”, a shining new opportunity to indulge in every adventurous musical thought in a way that was free from any concern about the feasibility of its pieces. Pairing themselves with an unlikely drummer early in the creative process, Angelo Fata from local hardcore bands Jesus Horse and Hopeless Youth, group mainstays Painchaud and Joubaud went on to craft songs that merged oppositional forces of vintage sounds with modern ideas. Mellotrons, Hammonds, and Rhodes were added on top of jazzy, funky riffs that managed to maintain the group’s melodic pallet in a way that pushed it further. If there was an elevator pitch to sum this new direction up, it might go something like this: “What if Toe and Camel got high together in a swamp?”
Recruiting session musicians such as Antoine Baril of One-Man-Yes/Rush Youtube fame, Zach Strouse, who is better known for his saxophone work with Rivers Of Nihil among other death metal acts, and local players-for-hire with pedigrees extending to sharing the stage with the likes of Deep Purple and Celine Dion, the recording sessions were capped off with the presence of indie rapper/singer/composer/label runner/Co-Defendant member Ceschi Ramos, culminating in the band’s first ever use of a human voice on one of their tracks. Tumbleweed Dealer finally delivered on the hip hop influences that underlay their back beats.
More than 8 years in the making, Tumbleweed Dealer’s main driving force, Seb Painchaud, not only thinks that this album reflects a life-spanning culmination of his experience as a musician and composer, but also of his life as an avid musical fan with an obsessive need to discover new artists, genres, and sounds. From finally being able to make use of riffs he wrote as an Opeth-obsessed adolescent in 1996 to repurposing chord progressions he crafted when he was at the helm of various black metal projects, one thing has become clear to him: the band’s first three albums were stepping stones that built up his confidence to eventually coin the genre-bending, stereotype-defying, yet oddly fluid music he imagined for the past twenty years. Though he has released records with various projects since his early twenties, Dark Green is the album he has been working on his whole life, whether he knew it or not.
Discography:
2025 – Dark Green – LP
2016 – TDIII – Tokes, Hatred & Caffeine – LP
2014 – Western Horror – LP
2013 – Tumbleweed Dealer – LP
2012 – Death Rides Southwards – EP
Shared Stage with: Ohm, Elder, Pentagram, Dopethrone, Truckfighters
Tours and Festivals:
2015 – Psycho California, Orange County, CA
2015 – Buckfest 14, Montreal, QC
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