Okkervil River‘s next album ‘Away‘ is due on September 9th.
‘Okkervil River R.I.P‘ has been picked to lead off the announcement which comes with a long statement from the band’s leader Will Sheff.
“The new Okkervil River album is called ‘Away’,” he begins. “I didn’t plan to make it and initially wasn’t sure if it was going to be an Okkervil River album or if I’d ever put it out. I wrote the songs during a confusing time of transition in my personal and professional life and recorded them quickly with a brand new group of musicians.”
“I got together the best New York players I could think of, people whose playing and personalities I was fans of and who came more out of a jazz or avant garde background, and we cut the songs live in one or two takes – trying to keep things as natural and immediate as possible – over three days in a studio on Long Island that hosts the Neve 8068 console which recorded Steely Dan’s Aja and John Lennon’s Double Fantasy.”
“I asked Marissa Nadler to sing on it and got the composer Nathan Thatcher to write some beautiful orchestral arrangements, we recorded them with the classical ensemble yMusic and then I mixed the record with Jonathan Wilson out in Los Angeles.”
Sheff goes on to explain that the album will tell a tale of transition during the years immediately prior; within the music industry, his band and his personal life.
It will come to the UK in November for dates in London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow.
‘Away’ tracklist:
‘Okkervil River R.I.P.’
‘Call Yourself Renee’
‘The Industry’
‘Comes Indiana Through The Smoke’
‘Judey On a Street’
‘She Would Look For Me’
‘Mary On a Wave’
‘Frontman In Heaven’
‘Days Spent Floating (In The Halfbetween)’