New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Chicago's Maps & Atlases are ending their six-year hiatus, returning with their third full-length Lightlessness Is Nothing New on June 1 on Barsuk Records, and today the band shared a new single, "Ringing Bell." Brooklyn Vegan premiered the track -- via a lyric video created by the band's drummer Christopher Hainey -- today, saying, "'Ringing Bell' still sounds like classic Maps & Atlases but also sees them going in a more danceable pop direction with more electronics in the mix."
"I wrote a few lines of 'Ringing Bell' the day that my dad passed away. I wanted to express the strangeness of witnessing such a surreal transformation undertaken by someone so close to me, but I didn't try to finish the song in that state, as I knew I didn't yet have any perspective on the loss.
That lack of perspective itself became a theme in the song. After he passed, I felt the need to put some shoes on my dad, despite the protest of the people picking him up that he wouldn't need them. I describe this moment in the song, as it reflects both a general and specific disorientation of loss, with the line, 'I thought you still might need my shoes / somehow I'd like to still believe / that they might be of some use.'" - Dave Davison
Lightlessness Is Nothing New, which also features the previously released single "Fall Apart," is available for pre-order now.
Maps & Atlases will tour the U.S. in support of the new album this May and June:
5/29: 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN
6/01: Upstream Music Festival - Seattle, WA
6/02: Volume Music Festival - Spokane, WA
6/03: Holocene - Portland, OR
6/06: Rickshaw Stop - San Francisco, CA
6/07: Lodge Room - Los Angeles, CA
6/08: Casbah - San Diego, CA*
6/09: REBEL Lounge - Phoenix, AZ*
6/10: Sister Bar - Albuquerque, NM*
6/12: Club Dada - Dallas, TX*
6/13: Scoot Inn - Austin, TX*
6/14: White Oak Upstairs - Houston, TX*
6/15: Parish @ House of Blues - New Orleans, LA*
6/16: Georgia Theatre - Athens, GA*
6/17: Cat's Cradle - Back Room - Carrboro, NC*
6/19: Rock & Roll Hotel - Washington, DC*
6/20: Music Hall of Williamsburg - New York, NY
6/21: Sonia - Boston, MA*
6/22: Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, PA*<
6/23: Cattivo - Pittsburgh, PA*
6/24: Grog Shop - Cleveland, OH*
6/26: Rumba - Columbus, OH*
6/27: El Club - Detroit, MI*
6/28: Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL*
6/30: Fountain SquareMusic Series - Cincinnati, OH
* w/ Prism Tats
Dave Davison's voice - a seasoned croon continually abandoned for a controlled yet penetrating howl - betrays the range of emotions he has faced in the six years since the band's last release. In 2012, just before the launch of the acclaimed Beware and Be Grateful, Davison (guitar, vocals) lost his father, his best friend. Grief took the form of inquiry: How can you reckon with the sudden death of someone whom, your entire life, was right beside you? How can you go on living in the unbridgeable gulf between the light and the dark, between the dark and the light? The title of Maps and Atlases' new album, Lightlessness Is Nothing New, serves to foreshadow an emotionally and musically dynamic collection of songs that contemplates the jolt of loss and THE STRAIN of longing to music that, against our better judgment, makes us want to dance.
"The story of this album is much more interesting than any other album we've made before," Davison says, leaning over a weathered dining table in his apartment on Chicago's North Side. Lightlessness began as a solo album, unfolding over a six-year period during which time Davison was struggling with anxiety. Writing music became therapeutic, allowing Davison to identify and contemplate his obsessive tendencies while tracking a growing awareness of himself as a musician, a partner, a friend, a person. After cementing the structure of Lightlessness with longtime producer Jason Cupp (American Football, Good Old War), Maps joined up with Scott Solter. The veteran producer of acts such as Okkervil River and The Mountain Goats, Solter has a reputation for pushing artists out of their musical comfort zones. It wasn't until Davison enlisted the help of longtime friend and drummer Chris Hainey and bassist Shiraz Dada that the album transformed from a solo endeavor into a Maps & Atlases album and the motivations and desires began to reveal themselves.
Maps and Atlases' new album Lightlessness Is Nothing New is ultimately a celebration of our magnificent, foolhardy pursuits to find love, happiness, and control in a world defined by mystery, hardship, and, worst of all, brevity. In the brooding yet playful vein of the Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel, Maps embraces the paradox of what it is to be human - constantly searching and, forever unsatiated, returning again and again, with everlasting hope, to the ever-darkening fray.
