Perhaps that sentiment was sown when Tanner was a Swedish transplant in Southern California. In any event … and lest he remain in a continued fit of isolation … shortly after his return to the Twin Cities in 1994, Patrik formed The Faraway Men. With outlaws Mark Juenemann on bass and Brandon Fjetland on drums & hambone, they released 1997’s Done Broke Down and 1998’s Sparks Would Fly. The band was a perfect vehicle for Tanner to express his fondness for great songsmith-storytellers like Gram Parsons, George Jones and Elvis Costello while spinning his own unique tales of love-gone-bad with both swagger and soul.

While hailed by some critics as torchbearers of the alt-country genre, the band actually sought to take a more reverential approach to classic C&W roots – one that defied expectations of either alt-country’s urban hipster twang or the Nashvillian bubblegum that continues to dominate today’s country scene. As PULSE of the Twin Cities exclaimed, if this is country, then country just got unbelievably cool.
After releasing 2005’s Soft as a full-fledged solo effort, Patrik Tanner re-emerges this winter with his long-time backing band, The Faraway Men.

Never one to let the grass grow between his toes, their fourth release – Full Auto Shut-off – may well represent Tanner’s most radical departure to date in both scope and sentiment.

Whereas Soft was a nuanced, structured and unabashedly sentimental exploration of love and mortality, Full Auto Shut-off expands viciously on those same themes, but with all the subtlety of a ten-ton truck. Unearthing secrets, suspicions, old wounds and new fears, Tanner entertains both daydreams and night terrors, exploring fantasies of redemption and revenge.

Widely known as an exacting producer with an affinity for airtight performances, Tanner also dispenses of almost all production pretense. The CD was recorded over a series of evenings throughout the course of 2005-2006, on a one-song per session basis, without the benefit of any prior rehearsal and with almost no additional overdubs. Almost 40 tracks were captured in total; the twelve most cohesive ones were chosen to complete Full Auto Shut-off.

The sparse, spontaneous sound is a perfect match to Tanner’s chilling lyrics. Splendidly chaotic, each song captures both the inspiration and uncertainty of the moment. When I think about all my favorite records, so many of them embrace that element of chance, says Tanner. I ditched the notion of perfection and we did everything on the fly. It took a few drinks for us to stumble on the right formula, but once we did it was off and running.

The end result is not just a superb record, but a stroke of great fortune, says Tanner – after almost ten years, we finally found out what The Faraway Men actually sound like …