L.A.’s indiepop foursome the black watch has announced the impending new full length album entitled Fromthing Somethat, to be released on October 23, 2020 via ATOM Records. The tongue-twister title comes from a mistake front man John Andrew Fredrick made whilst singing a line from the song “The Lonesome Death of Mary Hansen.” Cleverly self-effacing album titles have been a part of this serious band’s aesthetic ever since 2011’s well-received Led Zeppelin Five (along with such titles as “Jiggery-Pokery”, “After the Gold Room”, “The Gospel According To John”, and “Magic Johnson”).
The album hops, skips, and jumps from dreamy-floaty (the opening number, “Saint Fair Isle Sweater”) to dance-y (the almost-disco of “The Nothing That Is”) to majestic (“All I Know (Is That the Moon is Beautiful)” to dark/ominous (“Drip, Drip, Drip”) and back again to dreamlike (“For Always Then To Keep” and the soaring closing lullaby “I’m Not Hung Up”). And yet it’s all of a piece–a record that perhaps sounds like every 60’s, 80’s, or 90’s guitar band you’ve ever loved and, well, unmistakably a the black watch record.
Formed in 1987 in Santa Barbara, California the band (with Fredrick as its lone constant member) has been churning out high-quality releases–especially in the last ten years) at an astonishing rate. This LP was recorded without a single rehearsal: Fredrick brought the songs in and the band played them once or twice, then overdubbed the necessary mellotron or percussion or third guitar parts–a way of capturing the excitement and the sparkle that comes off, as it were, a shiny new thing. There’s a certain feeling that a band gets the very first time a song comes together; and TBW set out to showcase that sensation on the new album.
Fromthing Somethat is now available for vinyl pre-order, listening and digital download on the bands Bandcamp link below.
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