After eight years away, The Arcs will return in January with a new album “Electrophonic Chronic”, the band’s first album since its lauded 2015 debut “Yours, Dreamily”. The project helmed by Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) on Thursday shared “Keep On Dreamin”, the lead single from the album due to arrive from Dan’s own Easy Eye Sound.
“Electrophonic Chronic” features The Arcs’ full original line-up of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and the late Richard Swift, who passed away in 2018. The 12-track offering was recorded largely before Swift’s death and serves as a tribute to the singer-songwriter/producer who toured as The Black Keys’ bassist from 2014–15 and also produced albums by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Guster, The Shins, and a host of others.
“This new record is all about honouring Swift,” Auerbach said. “It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing. It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.”
While The Arcs appeared to have gone silent following “Yours, Dreamily“, and the accompanying two-year world tour, the band continued to record prodigiously. Michels, who co-produced “Electrophonic Chronic”, notes that they probably laid down between 80 and 100 tracks.
“Whether it was New York City or Nashville or L.A. or Swift’s hometown of Cottage Grove, Oregon, wherever we were, we would always get in the studio together. Always. It was our favourite thing to do,” Auerbach added. “It’s rare that you meet a group of people that you click with like that, who you instantly bond with. We were just having fun, making sounds, making music. It was an amazing time for me.”
The Fat Angel Sings 