Mo Troper
Mo Troper is a Portland-based indie singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose music takes listeners on an emotional trip, with the upbeat energy of his classic-style pop melodies facing up against lyrics that ask pointed, sardonic questions about the world around him. Troper's songs draw on the frameworks of vintage 1960s and '70s pop tunes, but he adds his own share of contemporary twist and turns, with elements of lo-fi and indie pop putting rough edges on the smooth melodic surfaces. Troper's first two proper albums, 2016's Beloved and 2017's Exposure & Response found him approaching his music within a straightforward pop framework, while 2021's Dilettante and 2024's Svengali were more experimental, adding expressive noise and buzzy experimentation to the mix.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Mo Troper was born in 1992; his great-grandmother was Pearl Argyle, a celebrated actress and ballet dancer in the '20s and '30s, while his grandfather Steven Bernhardt worked as a producer and assistant director in film and television during the '60s and '70s. Troper's father was an obsessive Beatles fan, and Mo grew up absorbing the influences of the Fab Four and other '60s pop acts. In his teens, he began making his way into the Portland D.I.Y. music scene. While in high school, Troper and drummer Nate Sonefeld formed the band Your Rival, who specialized in "fun songs about horrible things." In 2013, they released an album, Here's to Me, through the local punk label Party Damage Records. The band soon broke up, and Troper worked with the groups TeenSpot and Sancho before he decided it was time to strike out on his own. In 2015, he spent several months house-sitting for his grandmother, and he used the time to work on his songwriting. Troper took the songs he'd written and booked time at a Portland recording studio called the Magic Closet. The result was Troper's first solo album, 2016's Beloved, which featured a statue of Pearl Argyle on the front cover; it was released by Good Cheer Records, a label founded by Troper. The album received rave reviews in the Pacific Northwest music press, and in February 2017 he dropped Mo Troper Gold, a collection of orphaned songs he'd written between 2010 and 2015. November 2017 saw the release of Exposure & Response, Troper's most ambitious work to date, which dressed up his '60s-inspired melodies with horns and strings along with drums and guitars.
Various projects kept Troper occupied in 2018 and 2019, but 2020 brought a pair of releases. Natural Beauty was an 11-song set of well-crafted tunefulness, with Troper once again playing most of the instruments himself, and Moreover, Pt. 2 (Demos, Outtakes, Ect.) was another collection of studio leftovers that included 14 originals as well as covers of tunes by the Beatles, Sheryl Crow, Nintendo composer Koji Kondo, and the Wonders, the fictive band from Tom Hanks' movie That Thing You Do. 2021's Dilettante was an epic-scale, 28-song double album in which Troper dipped his toes into noisier indie pop territory, though his melodies were as approachable as ever. He once again demonstrated his appreciation for the classics later that year with Revolver, a playful but faithful song-by-song cover of the Beatles' 1966 classic. September 2022 brought MTV, a 15-track effort that saw Troper digging deeper into noisy, lo-fi production and a more willfully eccentric brand of pop songcraft. 2024's Svengali was a bold and eclectic mix of pure pop songcraft, straightforward rock & roll, dark noisy experiments, and production that alternative between hi-fi and lo-fi. Troper once again handled all the vocal instrumental performances himself, as well as producing, engineering, and mastering.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
Discographie
20 album(s) • Trié par Meilleures ventes
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Troper Sings Brion
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Lame-O Records le 17 nov. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
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The Perfect Song
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 25 déc. 2020
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
For You To Sing
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Lame-O Records le 17 avr. 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Natural Beauty
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 14 févr. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Beloved
Punk - New Wave - Paru chez Good Cheer Records le 29 avr. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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I Fall Into Her Arms
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Lame-O Records le 26 juil. 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
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The Only Living Goy in New York
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Lame-O Records le 16 août 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
I Am The Cosmos
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Lame-O Records le 27 déc. 2022
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
I Eat
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 7 févr. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Potential
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 17 janv. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jas From Australia
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 15 nov. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
If It Makes You Happy
Rock - Paru chez Good Cheer Records le 10 août 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
In Love With Everyone
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez Tender Loving Empire le 11 déc. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Never Dream of Dying
Pop - Paru chez Good Cheer Records le 28 nov. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo