Today Yeasayer reveals the complete gatefold album artwork for their fourth studio album, ‘Amen & Goodbye,’ out on April 1, 2016 on Mute. The artwork is a tableau of sculptures, actors and digital images by the New York-based Canadian artist David Altmejd, who worked directly with the group to create the record sleeve.
Moloch, an ancient god of child sacrifice, a silent movie starlet, a breastfeeding mother, characters from the band’s songs past and present, and various other pop-culture and religious characters all take the stage for the cover art. “It’s Sgt Pepper meets Hieronymous Bosch meets Dali meets PeeWee’s Playhouse” say Yeasayer. Altmejd, whose work is a major influence on the band, said the following about their collaboration: “I’m not very comfortable thinking about image and graphic design. I decided to offer them a sort of landscape filled with as many details as possible. I thought about a series of objects that would be inspired by characters that came from Yeasayer’s albums… but also characters that come from the news. There’s really fake looking sculptures, there’s printouts representing cartoony characters, there’s naked people… For me what’s very important is that the image offers enough visually for people to be really absorbed in the observation of details.”
Yeasayer also share a trailer today, entitled ‘Amen & Goodbye 6.’ The new teaser is a more comprehensive behind-the-scenes peek at details from Altmejd’s tableau, ending with a final zoom out to reveal the entire mise-en-scène. Watch it HERE and listen to a previously unheard track from the album. The previous teasers are available to watch HERE.
Yeasayer will be performing a sold out live show in the UK this Friday, February 12th at the BBC Radio 6Music Festival in Bristol. Full live dates are as follows, with North American headline shows soon to be announced.
February 12: UK: Bristol: BBC Radio 6 Music Festival
May 20 – 22 : USA: Atlanta, GA: Shaky Beats Music Festival
June 11: UK: London: Field Day Festival in Victoria Park, Main Stage
June 15: Norway: Bergen: Bergenfest
June 17 – 19: Denmark: Aarhus: Northside Festival
June 17 – 19: Netherlands: Beekse Bergen, Best Kept Secret Festival
June 20 – 22: Croatia: Zagreb, INmusic Festival
June 24 – 26: Germany: Scheeßel: Hurricane Festival
June 24 – 26: Germany: Neuhausen: Southside Festival
Photo credit: Eliot Lee Hazel
Amen & Goodbye is the follow-up to 2012’s Fragrant World. Moving away from a digital-heavy approach, Yeasayer recorded Amen & Goodbye to tape at Outlier Inn Studio in upstate New York, then brought on board Joey Waronker (drummer – Atoms For Peace / Beck) to deconstruct everything to make the final document.
The finished album has, as a loose concept, an underlying narrative informed by religion and transcendence, the afterlife and the search for meaning, and the songs stream together like a collection of strange fables from the Bible of some universe that does not yet exist. Amen & Goodbye features Yeasayer’s trademark sound without sounding like anything the band has done before.
Melding the song and vision of Yeasayer and Altmejd, director group New Media Limited have created the music video for ‘I Am Chemistry’, which is available to watch here. Featuring guest vocals from the legendary folk singer Suzzy Roche of The Roches, ‘I Am Chemistry’ is a linear psychedelic journey proving Yeasayer still has the knack for writing very eccentric and intricate pop songs.
AMEN & GOODBYE TRACKLISTING
1 Daughters Of Cain
2 I Am Chemistry
3 Silly Me
4 Half Asleep
5 Dead Sea Scrolls
6 Prophecy Gun
7 Computer Canticle 1
8 Divine Simulacrum
9 Child Prodigy
10 Gerson’s Whistle
11 Uma
12 Cold Night
13 Amen & Goodbye
Yeasayer is: Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder
Amen & Goodbye will be available on CD, Vinyl, Digital and Limited Edition Vinyl on April 1, 2016, and is available to pre-order now.
Pre-order links
iTunes | Amazon | Yeasayer Store
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