The Arcs—led by Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach—have announced their first album in eight years. Electrophonic Chronic follows the group’s 2015 debut LP Yours, Dreamily. The new record is out January 27 via Auerbach’s own Easy Eye Sound. Today, the Arcs have released lead single “Keep on Dreamin’” along with an animated music video created by Robert “Roboshobo” Schober and visual artist El Oms—who also illustrated the cover art. Find all of that below, as well as the tracklist for the new LP.
Electrophonic Chronic features the Arcs’ full original line-up of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and the late Richard Swift. “This new record is all about honoring Swift,” Auerbach said in a press release. “It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing. It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.”
The Arcs recorded Electrophonic Chronic between Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, Electric Lady in Manhattan, and Michels’ Diamond Mine in Queens, New York. Auerbach and Michels co-produced the LP, which was largely tracked prior to Swift’s passing in 2018. The new batch of songs were born from the band’s mutual obsession with recording and crate-digging.
“Whether it was New York City or Nashville or L.A. or Swift’s hometown of Cottage Grove, Oregon, wherever we were, we would always get in the studio together,” Auerbach added in press materials. “It was our favorite thing to do. It’s rare that you meet a group of people that you click with like that, who you instantly bond with. We were just having fun, making sounds, making music. It was an amazing time for me.”
Michels added: “There are probably between 80 and 100 tracks that we laid down, because we just constantly recorded after we put out Yours, Dreamily. It was so much fun to be in the studio once again, so we were just making music all the time. I think there was always a plan to make a follow-up record.”
The new album will be available in seven vinyl variants, including a “chronic edition” featuring a zoetrope-animated picture disc, flocked album art, and blacklight luminescent cover.
Revisit “Why Richard Swift Was an Indie Rock Treasure” on the Pitch.
Electrophonic Chronic:
01 Keep On Dreamin’
02 Eyez
03 Heaven Is a Place
04 Califone Interlude
05 River
06 Sunshine
07 A Man Will Do Wrong
08 Behind the Eyes
09 Backstage Mess
10 Sporting Girls Interlude
11 Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
12 Only One for Me
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