Robyn Hitchcock teams up with Brendan Benson for upcoming album

Another Yep Roc Records artist, one of my all-time faves and past interview subject, also has a new album on the way. Read more from the press release below...

A self-titled new album from Robyn Hitchcock, the 21st studio recording and first-ever eponymous release of the legendary British artist’s four-decade career, is due April 21. It is available for pre-order now at the official Yep Roc Store.

Described by its creator as “an ecstatic work of negativity,” Robyn Hitchcock is heralded by the metamorphic new single, “I Want To Tell You About What I Want.” The track premieres today exclusively at NPR Music.

“The original title of the song was ‘My Vision of World Empathy,’” Hitchcock says. “Either we will become extinct and eventually be replaced by cats with articulated thumbs who have evolved the way apes slowly evolved into us. Or we will become empathetic and mildly telepathic – people like Donald Trump won’t happen because biologically no human will be born with that lack of empathy. We will become a species that isn’t capable of bullying because we can feel what we’re doing to other people. There is obviously some evolutionary step between the human and the angel that needs to take place. Maybe when we have enough suffering credits our DNA will go, Right! Here we go! Homo angelicus – it can read your mind, it’s compassionate, it can levitate, and it’s a great lover! It shares its fish sticks with you and flies you back in time to see the Velvet Underground! That is what we need to become.”

Robyn Hitchcock sees the East Nashville-based Hitchcock casting familiar shapes into surprising new forms, the sci-fi fueled sounds and visions that first stimulated his work now ribboned with experience and hard-earned wisdom. Songs like “Sayonara Judge” are gorgeous and intense, rife with avant imagery, astringent wit, and righteous anger. Spanning dystopic psychedelia (“Mad Shelley’s Letterbox,” “Time Coast”), inspired folk baroque (“Raymond and the Wires,” “1970 In Aspic”) and even rambunctious liver-fried country (“I Pray When I’m Drunk”).

The album was recorded in Nashville with producer Brendan Benson and backing by a crack band of fellow Music City pickers and players that includes guitarist Annie McCue, bassist Jon Estes, and drummer Jon Radford. Harmony vocal contributions come courtesy of Emma Swift, Grant Lee Phillips, Gillian Welch, and Wilco’s Pat Sansone.

New York City performances of solo debut Black Diamond Snake Role will take place in late February/early March.