The return of Bright Eyes

Nearly 10 years since Bright Eyes last performed a show together (in Honolulu on 11/21/2011), they are now back together tonight - with some additional friends - to play the new single “Mariana Trench” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Today’s single release comes with details of the band’s long awaited tenth album, and first since 2011, Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was, to be released on Dead Oceans on August 21st.

Fans were first alerted to new material in January when the band's long dormant social media accounts were revived with new images. First song to be unveiled was “Persona Non Grata”, then "Forced Convalescence” and most recently, “One And Done”.

A mesmerizing video for “Mariana Trench” was created by Art Camp. Speaking on the creation of the video, Art Camp states: “The production of the video started at the beginning of quarantine and finished as people came back out of their homes and took to the streets together. In 18 different bedrooms across the world, listening to Bright Eyes, keeping each other company, we got the chance to collaborate on a story about embracing and celebrating change. The animation is composed of 2,200 hand-illustrated ink paintings based on original 3D animation and archival footage. We hope it makes you excited to imagine that everything could be new.”

Pre-order Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was HERE

In 2011, the release of The People’s Key, Bright Eyes’ ninth and most recent album, ushered in an unofficial hiatus. In the time since, the band’s core members – Oberst, multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, and multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Walcott have worked on projects that overlapped from time to time, with Oberst and Mogis living next door to one another in Omaha and Walcott’s Los Angeles home just fifteen minutes away from Oberst’s house on the East Side, where he’s spent the bulk of his time over the last few couple of years whilst working on his most recent solo records and Better Oblivion Community Center.  

The end of Bright Eyes’ unofficial hiatus came when Oberst pitched the idea of getting the band back together during a 2017 Christmas party at Walcott’s house. The two huddled in the bathroom and called Mogis, who was Christmas shopping at an Omaha mall. Mogis immediately said yes. The resulting Bright Eyes album came together unlike any other of its predecessors.

Down In The Weeds... stems from only one demo, was written in stints in Omaha and in bits and pieces in Walcott’s home. Radically altering a writing process 25 years into a project seems daunting, but Oberst said there was no trepidation: “Our history and our friendship, and my trust level with them, is so complete and deep. And I wanted it to feel as much like a three-headed monster as possible.”

Across recording sessions between Omaha’s ARC Studios, Los Angeles’s Electro-Vox, and LA’s Capitol Studios, the trio used a rhythm section made up of Jon Theodore (Mars Volta, Queens of the Stone Age, One Day as a Lion) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea.

Dead Oceans is offering exclusive standard and deluxe bundles to preorder on Secretly Store which include Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was 2xLP on limited transparent red & transparent orange vinyls, Persona Non Grata b/w Flirted With You All My Life 7” on limited transparent orange w/ opaque red splatter and various other exclusive items.

All 2xLP variants feature a 2-inch die cut hole through the entire package revealing the LPs from both sides. Side D contains an animated phenakistoscope etching by Drew Tetz and a 4-panel lyric booklet.

Track listing:

1.) Pageturner’s Rag

2.) Dance And Sing
3.) Just Once In The World
4.) Mariana Trench
5.) One and Done
6.) Pan and Broom
7.) Stairwell Song

8.) Persona Non Grata
9.) Tilt-A-Whirl
10.) Hot Car in the Sun
11.) Forced Convalescence
12.) To Death’s Heart (In Three Parts)
13.) Calais To Dover
14.) Comet Song