Kurt Vile released a new album, “Bottle It In”, back in October 2018 via Matador Records. Among our Top Albums for that year. Now he has announced some more tour dates. He has also covered The Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations” in a session for Spotify, where he also performed his own “Loading Zones.”
Matador Records is now sharing a little behind-the-scenes info on the project in the form of a twenty-minute documentary detailing Vile’s experience leading up to its recording. Filmed in New York’s Catskill Mountains, (bottle back) follows Vile as he rehearses the songs that would appear on Bottle It In alongside Canadian alt-westerners The Sadies and guitarist/producer Matt Sweeney, as well as his band The Violators.
In addition to full-song footage of Vile playing through “Baby’s Arm,” “Bassackwards,” and “Check Baby,” (bottle) provides plenty of insight into the artist’s personal life and how he’s learned to balance raising a family with a prolific output of new music. “I basically would do a whole album cycle, then start a new record and go out again when the record was done,” he says at one point before swigging a beer. “I just get so deep into the record that I can’t stomach that ever again—I’ll puke. I just gotta live my life, make music in between everything else—family world, playing live, and otherwise. It’s just the way I live.”
You can watch the Ryan Scott–directed doc in its entirety below, and stream the new version of “Baby’s Arm”.
Bottle It In includes “Loading Zones,” a new song Vile shared in August 2018 via an amusing video for it, When the album was announced Vile shared the near 10-minute long “Bassackwards,” via a lyric video for the song. Then he shared another song from the album, “One Trick Ponies,” via a lyric video for the song. He also stopped by SiriusXM for a session covering Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” and perform “Bassackwards.”
Then he stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform “Loading Zones.” He also shared a non-album track, “Timing Is Everything (And I’m Falling Behind),” which was an Amazon Original. Vile also performed another session for NPR Music to performing three songs as part of their Tiny Desk Concert series, where he did “Bassackwards,” “Loading Zones,” and “Peeping Tomboy.” Then he stopped by Late Night with Seth Meyers to perform the album’s “Yeah Bones.”
“Bottle It In” was the follow-up to 2015’s b’lieve i’m goin down…, although in 2017 Vile teamed up with Courtney Barnett for a collaborative album, Lotta Sea Lice. Bottle It In was recorded over the course of two years in various cities (including Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Portland), with various producers (including Rob Schnapf, Shawn Everett, and Rob Laakso, a member of his backing band The Violators). The majority of Bottle It Inwas recorded at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with Peter Katis (Interpol, the National) engineering and producing. The album also features Cass McCombs, Kim Gordon, Mary Lattimore, Lucius, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, and Farmer Dave Scher.
The Fat Angel Sings 