Land of Talk - Life After Youth // Limited to 250 Blue/Black Split Vinyl LP

RIYL: sharon van etten, dinosaur jr, sonic youth, broken social scene

Label: Saddle Creek

Last year Land of Talk started playing live shows again after half a decade of radio silence.
All of the reviews for those shows were mighty positive and mentioned that there was some new material being played live.

Finally, 7 years after the release of Cloak and Cipher, Land of Talk have returned with a brand spanking new studio album. It’s chock full of guests like Sharon Van Etten and Steve Shelley on the drums.

This version is limited to 250 and is a Saddle Creek Store exclusive.

The Details

This is a PRE-ORDER item. We will ship this item to arrive on or around the May 19, 2017 release date unless your order includes other pre-order items that ship later. All items in your order will ship together .

You will receive a download of the track, Inner Lover, with your pre-order. The full album download will be available on 5/19/2017.

LP PACKAGING NOTES:

Vinyl pressed at GZ
Limited Edition (qty of 250) Colored LP pressed on split blue/black vinyl, exclusive to Saddle Creek store orders only. Includes 4" x 10" Land of Talk pennant.
Printed inner sleeve.
Includes download card.
Life After Youth is the first Land of Talk album since 2010’s Cloak and Cipher. After taking a few months off after Cloak and Cipher’s touring cycle, frontwoman Elizabeth Powell got back to work on a followup. Instead, a series of mishaps - post-tour fatigue, a crashed hard drive with new demos, and her father’s stroke in 2013 - turned “a few months” into “a few years”.

While caring for her father, Elizabeth fell under the spell of classical, ambient, and Japanese tonkori music, whose meditative quality aided his recovery. Immersing herself in those sounds would change her entire approach to music making; she started writing songs without her trusty guitar, instead building tracks up from synth beds and programmed loops.

Life After Youth’s centerpiece track, “Inner Lover,” presents the most radical results of those experiments. It’s an audio Rorschach test of a song: key in on the incessant synth pulse underpinning Elizabeth’s pleading vocal (“take care of me!”) and the track assumes an ominous intensity. But when you surrender to the relaxed drum counter-rhythm and subliminal harmonies, “Inner Lover” projects a graceful serenity.

Even the songs built atop more traditional rock foundations exist in that liminal space between dreaming and waking life, confidence and doubt, raw feelings and soothing sounds. “Yes You Were” opens the record with a cold-start surge that’s overwhelming in its immediacy, with Elizabeth’s furiously strummed guitar jangle and wistful lyricism bearing all the adrenalized excitement and nervous energy of seeing old friends (or, in her case, fans) for the first time in ages. And as its title suggests, “Heartcore” is a collision of soft-focus sonics and emotional intensity, with Elizabeth’s crystalline vocals hovering above a taut, relentless backbeat and disorienting synth squiggles. Even the turn-a-new-leaf optimism of “This Time” is presented less as a triumphant comeback statement than a warm reassuring embrace—its beautifully dazed ‘n’ confused psych-pop swirl acts as a calming force as you hurtle toward life’s great unknown.

Fitting for a song about reconnecting with the world, “This Time” was the product of another fortuitous reunion—between Elizabeth and her old friend Sharon Van Etten, who lent her songwriting smarts and heavenly harmonies to that track, as well as “Heartcore” and the Fleetwood Mac-worthy “Loving.” And Van Etten is just one member of a veritable indie-rock dream team Elizabeth recruited to complete the album: the moonlit ballad “In Florida” was recorded by producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile) in his New Jersey studio, with Elizabeth backed by former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and Roxy Music/Sparks bassist Sal Maida.

To paraphrase the late David Bowie, it’s been seven years, and Elizabeth’s brain hurt a lot. But she stands today as the patient-zero case study for Life After Youth’s therapeutic powers. These are the songs that got her through the tough times. And now, they can do the same for you.

Release Date: May 19th, 2017

TRACK LIST
01. Yes You Were
02. This Time
03. Loving
04. What Was I Thinking?
05. Spiritual Intimidation
06. Heartcore
07. Inner Lover
08. World Made
09. In Florida
10. Macabre

Important Information: This item is not available to residents of Canada. Please be advised that if you live in Canada, your order will be cancelled. Canadian residents should order from Dine Alone Records.

Land of Talk - the Montreal-based band led by Elizabeth Powell - has announced its first new album in seven years, Life After Youth, set for release May 19th on Saddle Creek. Produced and mixed by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth) and Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes), and featuring Sharon Van Etten, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Sal Maida (Roxy Music/Sparks), and The Besnard Lakes, the album is a collection of songs that sees Powell in the finest voice of her career, and reuniting with original Land of Talk drummer Bucky Wheaton. NPR Music’s All Songs Considered premiered Life After Youth’s stirring first single “Inner Lover” today, and the song – “a beautiful ode to self-determination” – can be streamed now here: Soundcloud/YouTube. Powell says, "‘Inner Lover’ is a song about self-determination, self-love, self-ownership. It's about the freedom to live, and love as one chooses.” Life After Youth can now be pre-ordered here: https://saddle-creek.com/products/life-after-youth. The colored vinyl is going fast, so don't sleep on it!
Following a handful of acclaimed 2016 reunion shows -- including dates at NY's Bowery Ballroom and Baby's All Right (which sold-out within minutes), where Brooklyn Vegan noted “chants of ‘holy sh*t! holy sh*t’ recurred throughout the night” -- and social media teasers covered by FADER, Stereogum, Exclaim, among others, Land of Talk has also announced a North American headlining run starting on June 13th in Allston, MA. A current itinerary is below. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 1pm Eastern.

Additional Images

Price $21.99