Jeffrey Martin’s New Album Thank God We Left the Garden Out Today

Jeffrey Martin’s New Album Thank God We Left the Garden Out Today
Album Release Tour Begins January 10 with Shows Across UK & Europe

STREAM ALBUM STANDOUT ‘SCULPTOR’
DOWNLOAD ‘SCULPTOR’

STREAM THANK GOD WE LEFT THE GARDEN
“A masterpiece in any time zone."

9/10
UNCUT

"Reminiscent of early Nathaniel Rateliff and John Moreland, and prime John Prine, there’s no reason to

doubt that Martin might one day eclipse them all.”

★★★★
MOJO

“Martin has delivered one of the finest albums of recent times, which if there is any justice should elevate
him to the very forefront of the current crop of confessional singer-songwriters and sit high in all the end

of year top ten lists”
10/10
AMERICANA UK

"Such honesty, depth, wisdom, and insight."

FOLK RADIO UK

November 3, 2023 — Portland, Oregon artist Jeffrey Martin returns today with Thank God We
Left the Garden, his first new full-length since 2017’s One Go Around and his debut album on
Loose.
Self-produced and recorded in a tiny home-made shack on the back of Martin’s small corner lot
in southeast Portland, the songs on Thank God We Left the Garden began as demos meant for
a later visit to a proper studio, but became the quietly potent album itself. Beloved Portland
guitarist Jon Neufeld would later mix and master the record and add electric guitar to three
songs. Sticking to the same less-is-more approach, his work skillfully and subtly elevates the
lyrical intention, becoming such a crucial part of the final result that Martin also credited him as
a co-producer.
“There was a magic quality to the sounds I was getting in the shack with these two cheap
microphones, some lucky recipe of time and place,” Martin recalls. “I feel like I’ve only just
learned how to sing. Like I’ve been chasing this record since my very first recordings. I wanted
to really see what I could do, just my guitar and my voice and little else. I don’t think it was
conscious. I think maybe it was a reaction to the pace of life these days. The churning news
and entertainment and politics and violence of it all. I needed to know that even in this day and
age, just a few simple ingredients still hold up.”

Download album artwork

Thank God We Left The Garden
1. Lost Dog

2. Garden
3. Quiet Man
4. Red Station Wagon
5. Paper Crown
6. There Is a Treasure
7. All My Love
8. Daylight
9. I Didn’t Know
10. Sculptor
11. Walking

The title Thank God We Left the Garden is a paradoxical nod to Martin’s own spiritual
conclusions, a theme that is subtly woven throughout the album. The son of a pastor, he
touches on his religious upbringing then carries us well beyond his past where humble,
nuanced questions about what it means to be alive are free to unfold.
“It’s always bothered me how uptight religion gets around the messiness of our human natures,
always trying to tell people they’re broken and flawed from the get-go,” Martin explains. “The
only God I can imagine is one who is overjoyed with the mess. Who revels in the edgeless
mystery. I imagine hanging around with angels all day gets boring pretty fast. So maybe we got
the story wrong. Maybe we were supposed to leave the Garden all along. Maybe that was the
first good thing we ever did. After all, I can’t think of anything that has an ounce of meaning or
dimension that doesn’t come from failure.”
Martin has been steadily touring throughout North America and Europe since the 2017 release
of One Go Around (heralded by No Depression as “the poetry of America”) and will embark on
a tour of Europe and the UK in January 2024 to perform the new songs from Thank God We
Left the Garden. Please see below for full tour details. Tickets are on sale now here.

Jeffrey Martin On Tour

10 JAN Cafe t Rozenknopje, Eindhoven, Netherlands
11 JAN Djingel Djangel, Antwerp, Belgium
12 JAN Kaffee ‘t Hof, Middelburg, Netherlands
13 JAN TivoliVredenburg Ronda, Utrecht, Netherlands
14 JAN Patronaat, Haarlem, Netherlands
18 JAN Roisin Dubh, Galway, Ireland
19 JAN DeBarra’s Folk Club, Clonakilty, Ireland
20 JAN The Workman’s, Dublin, Ireland
21 JAN Lavery’s, Belfast, UK
23 JAN Future Yard, Birkenhead, UK
24 JAN Drygate Brewing Company, Glasgow, UK
25 JAN The Globe, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
26 JAN The Slaughtered Lamb, London, UK
27 JAN The Folklore Rooms, Brighton, UK
28 JAN Hop Yard Brewing Co, East Grinstead, UK