New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Arcs have announced their return with Electrophonic Chronic, a new studio album coming out January 27 through Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound. The group's first full-length release since 2015's critically-lauded Yours, Dreamily, the new album was co-produced by The Arcs' Leon Michels and Auerbach, and largely recorded with their bandmate Richard Swift before his untimely passing in 2018. Musically, Electrophonic Chronic was born from the band's mutual obsession with recording and crate-digging, taking in a wide range of inspirations including vintage soul, old school garage and the space age pop of the 1960s.
Listen to lead single "Keep On Dreamin'" and watch the accompanying video from animator/director Robert "Roboshobo" Schober and visual artist El Oms:
Dan Auerbach says: "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. Always. 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."
Leon Michels adds: "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 unique vinyl variants, including a special "Chronic Edition" featuring zoetrope-animated picture disc, flocked album art, and blacklight luminescent cover. Other unique vinyl variants will be available through Urban Outfitters, Vinyl Me, Please, Brooklyn Vegan, and independent retailers nationwide. Additionally, indie retailers will carry a limited edition CD with bonus patch. For more information on these variants, click here.
Electrophonic Chronic features The Arcs full original line-up of Dan Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss and Richard Swift. The collection was recorded between Nashville - at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound studio - and New York at Electric Lady and Leon Michels' Diamond Mine. The album's cover art was illustrated by El Oms, whose artwork also dons the cover of the group's 2015 debut Yours, Dreamily. Like much of Electrophonic Chronic it stands as a tribute to Swift, their bandmate and brother gone too soon. "This new record is all about honoring Swift," Auerbach concludes. "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."
Following the release of Yours, Dreamily, in 2015, The Arcs toured the globe for more than two years with notable performances at Coachella and Lollapalooza, as well as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR's Tiny Desk. Named one of Rolling Stone's Best Albums Of 2015, the record was praised as "rambunctious and confident" by Esquire, and "as varied as the musicians involved" by The Associated Press, with NPR noting prophetically: "Yours, Dreamily is already one of Auerbach's most ambitious and fully realized albums. But The Arcs' formula is so winning and natural that the band already has, at least according to Auerbach, a backlog of as many as 75 songs. If even some of those come to fruition, it could prove to be an enduring, endlessly rewarding collaboration."
The Arcs - Electrophonic Chronic Track List:
Keep On Dreamin'
Eyez Heaven Is A Place
Califone Interlude
River
Sunshine
A Man Will Do Wrong
Behind The Eyes
Backstage Mess
Sporting Girls Interlude
Love Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Only One For Me
