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Artist News Gigs & Festivals Releases
Ezra Furman announces “more animal than intellectual” new album
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 22 May 2019
Ezra Furman has announced the follow-up to his 2018 album ‘Transangelic Exodus’. Titled ‘Twelve Nudes’, his latest studio LP is set for release on Bella Union later this summer.
“This is our punk record”, says Furman. “We made it in Oakland, quickly. We drank and smoked. Then we made the loud parts louder. I hurt my voice screaming. This was back in 2018, when things were bad in the world. The songs are naked with nothing to hide”.
“[‘Transangelic Exodus’ was] an angry and fearful and pent-up reaction to events too”, he adds. “But it was a carefully written and recorded version; we took a lot of time with edits and overdubs. I knew I wanted to make this album quickly and not spend time thinking how to play the songs. ‘Twelve Nudes’ is a ‘body’ more than a ‘mind’ record – more animal than intellectual. And by affirming negativity, it gives you energy, to reject stuff. There’s more space for positivity”.
The first single from the album is ‘Calm Down’, of which he says: “Desperate times make for desperate songs. I wrote this in the summer of 2018, a terrible time. It’s the sound of me struggling to admit that I’m not okay with the current state of human civilisation, in which bad men crush us into submission. Once you admit how bad it feels to live in a broken society, you can start to resist it, and imagine a better one”.
The album will be released on 30 Aug. Furman has two headline shows in Norwich and Sheffield next week, nestled in between performances at the Hay On Wye and All Points East festivals.
Watch the video for ‘Calm Down’ here:
