Tess Liautaud Releases New Single, ‘Haunted Mountain’
Franco-American, New Zealand-based folk-country artist Tess Liautaud today releases Haunted Mountain, a full-band interpretation of the song written and independently recorded by Buck Meek and Jolie Holland.
This marks Tess Liautaud’s second cover, but really, it is more a reflection of the sound she has been immersed in and building with her live band. The musicians have been playing together up and down New Zealand for the last few years, following the release of Liautaud’s latest album ‘Blue Mind’.
Sometimes recordings just need to capture a period in time, a sound, a moment, an energy. Haunted Mountain has been a crowd favourite since the first time it was played live, and this recording was made to capture that feeling.
Drawing on the energy of Buck Meek’s original recording and the eerie, poetic lament of its co-written version by Jolie Holland, Tess and her band lean fully into the song’s Americana roots. The recording is a shared effort, driven by Jessie Shanks’ twangy banjo, Elmore Jones’ gritty guitar licks and drums, Shaun Malloch’s pedal steel rêveries, and Michael Kime’s rumbling double bass, all anchoring Tess Liautaud on her journey through this Haunted Mountain.
You come out in the whirlwind, wondering where you started: up the mountain, through the river, and coming down again. These are the elements that drew Liautaud to the song in the first place, reflecting something of her own life and adventures in New Zealand.
Haunted Mountain is a live recording, recorded in Ryan Fisherman’s living room, with Fisherman engineering and mixing the session. The result is only a step away from the energy of seeing Tess Liautaud and her band live.
The single arrives just one day before Liautaud begins her biggest European tour to date, spanning Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and France.
Following her grassroots 2025 Sleepless in Europe tour, which took her duo with Jessie Shanks, through Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and France, Liautaud returns to Europe in 2026 with a much larger touring footprint and, for the first time, will bring a full five-piece band that has shaped her live sound in New Zealand to Europe.
The Swedish leg will run for more than three weeks, from 25 September to 17 October, with Liautaud and her full band touring across Sweden in partnership with Rootsy Music, one of Scandinavia’s key Americana and roots music networks.
The European run will also include a major Paris headline show at Bateau El Alamein on October 24, Liautaud’s biggest headline show in Paris to date and first full band show, followed by another French performance in Strasbourg.
In November, Liautaud returns to her duo format with Jessie Shanks for a Spanish tour from November 8th to 16th, presented in partnership with Lucinda Records, marking the second collaboration between Liautaud and the Spanish label and promoter.
The Netherlands leg includes a September 15 ‘Crossroads Session’ in Bergen op Zoom, organised by Crossroads Radio.
This is a significant new chapter for Liautaud: a new full-band recording, her first European shows with the five-piece ensemble, and her biggest touring run across Europe so far.
