Click here to listen to “Spitting Image”
This morning, NPR’s All Songs Considered unveiled the new single from Freelance Whales’ Diluvia. The song, “Spitting Image” will be available for download tomorrow on iTunes. In the meantime, the band has launched a pre-order of Diluvia here. The album is bundled with a limited-edition star projector custom-designed for Diluvia, and is also available in standard CD and vinyl formats. Each pre-order comes with an exclusive poster signed by the band and an immediate download of “Spitting Image,” previously-released album cut “Locked Out,” and a live version of the song recorded in June.
From NPR:
It’s been a couple of years since we first discovered and fell in love with the music of Freelance Whales. That was back in 2010, shortly after the group of multi-instrumentalists from Queens, N.Y. released its breathtakingly beautiful debut Weathervanes.
Now the band is back with a whole new batch of songs they’re calling Diluvia. The sophomore full length won’t be out until Oct. 9, on Mom + Pop/Frenchkiss Records, but the group is giving fans an early taste with its new single, “Spitting Image.”
While frontman Judah Dadone normally sings lead for Freelance Whales, bassist Doris Cellar assumes the role for this cut, with a voice and intonation that reminds me of Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries.
The band has always had an enormous, euphoric sound. But in an email, Dadone told us that “Spitting Image” was an even bigger evolution in the group’s music.
“It might sound poppier in a way, but also brasher and more reckless than anything we’ve done before. There’s a lot of clanging, fingers squeaking on bass strings and other sounds that happen naturally when a band plays together. The expansiveness of the track (compared with an almost claustrophobically tight sound on Weathervanes) is something that we wanted to suggest that we’re moving outward, from small confined spaces further into the stratosphere. And certainly the rest of the record also feels shot out into a larger space. Above all of that, though, I think this song is mostly just the expression of our desire to do something more steady and rollicking.”
Dadone says the song is, at least in part, about the human body being controlled by something “like aliens or the movements of distant stars.”
Click Here To Listen To “Spitting Image” On NPR
This morning, NPR’s All Songs Considered unveiled the new single from Freelance Whales’ Diluvia. The song, “Spitting Image” will be available for download tomorrow on iTunes. In the meantime, the band has launched a pre-order of Diluvia here. The album is bundled with a limited-edition star projector custom-designed for Diluvia, and is also available in standard CD and vinyl formats. Each pre-order comes with an exclusive poster signed by the band and an immediate download of “Spitting Image,” previously-released album cut “Locked Out,” and a live version of the song recorded in June.
From NPR:
It’s been a couple of years since we first discovered and fell in love with the music of Freelance Whales. That was back in 2010, shortly after the group of multi-instrumentalists from Queens, N.Y. released its breathtakingly beautiful debut Weathervanes.
Now the band is back with a whole new batch of songs they’re calling Diluvia. The sophomore full length won’t be out until Oct. 9, on Mom + Pop/Frenchkiss Records, but the group is giving fans an early taste with its new single, “Spitting Image.”
While frontman Judah Dadone normally sings lead for Freelance Whales, bassist Doris Cellar assumes the role for this cut, with a voice and intonation that reminds me of Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries.
The band has always had an enormous, euphoric sound. But in an email, Dadone told us that “Spitting Image” was an even bigger evolution in the group’s music.
“It might sound poppier in a way, but also brasher and more reckless than anything we’ve done before. There’s a lot of clanging, fingers squeaking on bass strings and other sounds that happen naturally when a band plays together. The expansiveness of the track (compared with an almost claustrophobically tight sound on Weathervanes) is something that we wanted to suggest that we’re moving outward, from small confined spaces further into the stratosphere. And certainly the rest of the record also feels shot out into a larger space. Above all of that, though, I think this song is mostly just the expression of our desire to do something more steady and rollicking.”
Dadone says the song is, at least in part, about the human body being controlled by something “like aliens or the movements of distant stars.”
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After two years and over a dozen tours, Freelance Whales were feeling road-worn and eager to rediscover their creative process. They had been building on the grassroots appeal of their earthy debut, Weathervanes, for tens of thousands of miles. To tare the scale, the band embarked on a many faceted journey during which they found themselves isolated in West Kill, sprawled with their instruments in Hoboken, and packed into studios in Brooklyn and Manhattan. What resulted from nearly a year’s worth of creative productivity is the group’s second full-length, Codec Diluvia (out October 9th on Mom+Pop/French Kiss).
Whereas Weathervanes was delivered from the perspective of a child infatuated with ayoung female ghost, Diluvia is a record about the possible survival – or peril – of space- faring humans and other arguably fantastical scenarios. Curiosity over these unknowns has evolved into notions of space exploration, ancient astronauts, dreams, and natural and artificial selection, with new songs building to expansive, atmospheric destinations. Working to evoke both prehistoric and pseudo-futuristic sensations, the record invites listeners to indulge in more elastic thought, perhaps, than it’s predecessor.
Diluvia, which was recorded over two months in New York City with producer Shane Stoneback, also finds Freelance Whales – Judah Dadone (vocals, guitar, banjo, synthesizers), Doris Cellar (bass, vocals), Chuck Criss (guitar, synthesizers, vocals), Jacob Hyman (drums, vocals), and Kevin Read (guitar, vocals) – exploring new instrumental experiences by blurring their trademark “organic” instruments with liberaluse of electronics and more aggressive rhythm. They may sound bigger, but Freelance Whales are no less committed to capturing intimacy though their music. Diluvia is an experiment in finding the confluence between science and emotion. Their hypothesis is that such a cathartic place exists, for both themselves and their fans, and it can be found somewhere in their new music.