Late last week, a press release for an Islands show in New York sneakily slipped in the fact that Nick Thorburn and co. had just "recently finished a brand new album which will be released via Anti-Records early next year." But beyond that we didn't know what to expect. Half a week later, all has been revealed about the outfit's upcoming full-length, A Sleep & A Forgetting.
The follow-up to 2009's Vapours will come February 14 and, according to Anti-, "continues the band's penchant for crafting adventuresome and infectious state of the art pop music," but also finds Thorburn mining his emotions for the extremely personal song cycle.
"This album is far more personal than any I've made before," Thorburn explained in a statement. "I left New York after the end of a relationship and came to Los Angeles. There was a piano where I was staying and that's where I wrote these songs. This record deals with loss, with memory and forgetting and with dreaming. I started writing it on Valentine's Day and its coming out on Valentine's Day."
Adding to Islands' already heady pop pastiche are apparently hints of classic soul, à la Smokey Robinson and the Temptations, as well as the folk sounds of Sibylle Baier, Maddy Prior and June Tabor, making for what's being dubbed a diverse and cathartic pop outing.
"The sound is really my interpretation of soul music," Thorburn explains. "I mean, I'm a white kid from Canada so it's gonna be very warped. But that's where my head was at, that particular way of dealing with themes of pain and heartbreak."
A Sleep & A Forgetting
1. "In A Dream It Seemed Real"
2. "This Is Not A Song"
3. "Never Go Solo"
4. "No Crying"
5. "Hallways"
6. "Can't Feel My Face"
7. "Lonely Love"
8. "Oh Maria"
9. "Cold Again"
10. "Don't I Love You"
11. "Same Thing"
The follow-up to 2009's Vapours will come February 14 and, according to Anti-, "continues the band's penchant for crafting adventuresome and infectious state of the art pop music," but also finds Thorburn mining his emotions for the extremely personal song cycle.
"This album is far more personal than any I've made before," Thorburn explained in a statement. "I left New York after the end of a relationship and came to Los Angeles. There was a piano where I was staying and that's where I wrote these songs. This record deals with loss, with memory and forgetting and with dreaming. I started writing it on Valentine's Day and its coming out on Valentine's Day."
Adding to Islands' already heady pop pastiche are apparently hints of classic soul, à la Smokey Robinson and the Temptations, as well as the folk sounds of Sibylle Baier, Maddy Prior and June Tabor, making for what's being dubbed a diverse and cathartic pop outing.
"The sound is really my interpretation of soul music," Thorburn explains. "I mean, I'm a white kid from Canada so it's gonna be very warped. But that's where my head was at, that particular way of dealing with themes of pain and heartbreak."
A Sleep & A Forgetting
1. "In A Dream It Seemed Real"
2. "This Is Not A Song"
3. "Never Go Solo"
4. "No Crying"
5. "Hallways"
6. "Can't Feel My Face"
7. "Lonely Love"
8. "Oh Maria"
9. "Cold Again"
10. "Don't I Love You"
11. "Same Thing"