Twenty years into their long and eccentric career, art rock project Joan of Arc have announced their next ambitious studio full-length. Given the tongue-twisting title of He's Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands, it lands January 20 via Joyful Noise Recordings.
The new 11-song outing from the band is their first proper studio LP since a self-titled collection from 2012. The lineup finds ringleader Tim Kinsella joined by fellow founder Jeremy Boyle and collaborators Bobby Burg, Theo Katsaounis and Melina Ausikaitis. According to Kinsella, a pause in band activity over the last few years initially made it hard to start back up again.
"We have shifted shapes and modified our approaches quite a number of times in the course of 20 years. And we've done so always aiming to stay true to ourselves at that moment, by instinct and with conscious intent," he said in a statement. "This time, it took us a long time to figure out how to start back up. We threw away a lot of songs and started over, over and over."
The bandleader conceded they eventually got into a groove once they threw away "every preconceived idea about which one of us should take position at which instrument."
You can sample some of the results below via a video for the record's "This Must Be the Placenta," which finds Mike Kinsella — a onetime Joan of Arc member that is about to issue a record with his American Football — playing the role of his older brother.
He's Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands:
1. Smooshed That Cocoon
2. This Must Be The Placenta
3. Stranged That Egg Yolk
4. Full Moon and Rainbo Repair
5. Cha Cha Cha Chakra
6. Grange Hex Stream
7. Two-Toothed Troll
8. New Wave Hippies
9. Never Wintersbone You
10. F is for Fake
11. Ta-ta Terrordome
The new 11-song outing from the band is their first proper studio LP since a self-titled collection from 2012. The lineup finds ringleader Tim Kinsella joined by fellow founder Jeremy Boyle and collaborators Bobby Burg, Theo Katsaounis and Melina Ausikaitis. According to Kinsella, a pause in band activity over the last few years initially made it hard to start back up again.
"We have shifted shapes and modified our approaches quite a number of times in the course of 20 years. And we've done so always aiming to stay true to ourselves at that moment, by instinct and with conscious intent," he said in a statement. "This time, it took us a long time to figure out how to start back up. We threw away a lot of songs and started over, over and over."
The bandleader conceded they eventually got into a groove once they threw away "every preconceived idea about which one of us should take position at which instrument."
You can sample some of the results below via a video for the record's "This Must Be the Placenta," which finds Mike Kinsella — a onetime Joan of Arc member that is about to issue a record with his American Football — playing the role of his older brother.
He's Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands:
1. Smooshed That Cocoon
2. This Must Be The Placenta
3. Stranged That Egg Yolk
4. Full Moon and Rainbo Repair
5. Cha Cha Cha Chakra
6. Grange Hex Stream
7. Two-Toothed Troll
8. New Wave Hippies
9. Never Wintersbone You
10. F is for Fake
11. Ta-ta Terrordome
