Charles Spearin Announces 'My City of Starlings' with a 12-Hour Music Video

The Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think member's new album lands in August

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jul 21, 2021

After sharing "Unsolicited Advice" in May, Charles Spearin has lifted the curtain on a new solo album. The Broken Social Scene/Do Make Say Think member will release My City of Starlings on August 13 via Arts & Crafts.

Not unlike that aforementioned single, My City of Starlings' 13 songs were born from a song-a-day writing club put together by Spearin, friends and peers. Said to slide between avant-garde, art rock and electronic sounds, the album features a lone credited guest spot from Robin Dann of Bernice.

"Portrait of the Artists as a Thursday" is the first song to arrive from the effort, complete with a 12-hour looping music video from animator Jared Sales.

"Days are still divided into groups of seven. Isn't that odd?" Spearin asked in a statement. "Couldn't we just have one day off? A day that's not named? A cleaning day, maybe. One that isn't even on the calendar. One where nobody expects anything to be done. Where we are like birds, unconcerned with the compartmentalizing and labeling of moments. Portrayed as a Thursday, the Artist is as unseeable as a musical note, an invisible serving dish offering up exactly one seventh of everything that happens."

Spearin's solo debut came in 2009 with The Happiness Project. Last year, he joined Swedish violinist Josefin Runsteen for LP Thank God the Plague Is Over.


My City of Starlings:

1. Sympathy & Vegetation
2. Portrait of the Artist as a Thursday 
3. Diaspora
4. Rutting Season
5. Vireos in Bellwoods
6. Three Voices (Braided Carefully) [ft. Robin Dann]
7. When Tigers Used to Smoke
8. My Heart is an Appaloosa in Canter
9. My City of Starlings
10. Onomatopoeia
11. Sometimes it Hurts to be Alive
12. The Morning Dew Lay Heavy on the Grass
13. The Wedding

Pre-order My City of Starlings.

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