Shearwater have announced a new album, “The New World”, and shared two new songs from it: “Daydream Unbeliever” and “More and More.” We preferred “Daydream Unbeliever,” but “More and More” makes our honorable mentions list.
Now they have shared the album’s third single, “Slugs in the Marigolds,” via a music video.
Shearwater is led by Jonathan Meiburg (also of Loma), and also includes Emily Lee and Dan Duszynski. “Daydream Unbeliever” features Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, who contributes strings and also smashed a gong. The album also features, as a press release puts it, “instrumental wizard Shahzad Ismaily, saxophonist and clarinetist Doug Wieselman, qanunist Farouz Zriek, guitarist Leo Abrahams, ngonist Mamadou Kouyate, percussionists Mahamadou Tounkara and Moctar Kouyate (of Malian group Ngoni Ba), and the unclassifiable drummer Thor Harris.”
In the past quarter-century, those in the know have watched Shearwater slyly become one of the most distinctive and adventurous American bands. Led (as always) by songwriter and natural historian Jonathan Meiburg, “The New World’s” nine immersive songs find the group farther afield than ever, and in rare company: along with Meiburg’s fellow Shearwaters Emily Lee and Dan Duszynski,
(There’s even a surprise visit from a certain L. Anderson.) That might sound like a lot of passengers, but they’re all ideal company for a headlong journey through joy, confusion, reverence and defiance, with Meiburg’s voice as a graceful yet elusive guide. Both spare and ornate, “The New World” is absorbing in a way few albums are; it’s hard not to listen to the end once you drop in.
“Daydream Unbeliever” featured Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, who contributed strings and also smashed a gong.
The band crowdfunded and produced the album themselves, recording it in London, Berlin, New York, and the band’s native Texas. Duszynski was the chief engineer on the album, with additional production by Leo Abrahams and Danny Reisch (the latter mixed the album with the band in Los Angeles).
“If you’re like us, you wake up feeling like the world’s on fire, and hoping you could reckon with it if you knew where to begin,” says Meiburg of the new singles. “‘Daydream Unbeliever’ and ‘More and More’ come from this uneasy place. If they help you feel a little less insane, welcome home.”
“This was a band favorite on “The New World,” Meiburg says in a press release. ”We liked how its loose, sunny feeling plays against the lyric—and we loved how Doug’s sax slithers up beside you.”
Meiburg had this to add about the song’s video: “This was one of those rare videos where everything just fell into place. The idea came to me on a walk in the woods, near the spot where I found our slug hero. Forty-eight hours later, after a grand day out with photographer Jason Benson, I put the slug right back where they came from, with a little extra lettuce to chew on. It’s my favorite Shearwater video since ‘Quiet Americans.’”
In 2022 Shearwater released “The Great Awakening“, their first album in six years.
“The New World” is due out on July 31st via the band’s own Polyborus label (in partnership with Secretly Distribution).
The Fat Angel Sings 