the new album: an announcement.
i’m realizing as i write this that as of this moment, only three living beings on this planet have heard the new album. and only two are human. there’s andy, who’s capturing it at his studio; a close friend, who’s heard some of the rough, early mixes; and number six, my beloved cat, who always hears my music before anyone else does. not that he has a choice in the matter.
so it feels decidedly strange to write about releasing something that has been kept a secret for three years. but as it was with ‘codes and secret longing’, ‘no ghostless place’, and ‘sightings’, it’s almost time to let the songs venture out into the world without me. which depending on the day makes me feel either terribly excited, or terribly nervous and overprotective. like i should knit each of them one more pair of dry socks to take with them, just in case.
the new album will be called ‘Öxnadalur’. it will contain 13 songs, and if all goes well i will have it ready for a November 1st release. the date shouldn’t surprise anyone who is aware of my longstanding fondness for 1101. the number of songs shouldn’t surprise anyone who is aware of my longstanding fondness for 13 song albums.
over the past month i’ve been finishing up some final guitar and keyboard parts on the songs, as well as some of the last lead and harmony vocals. and a bit of piano. i’ve been putting the artwork together at the same time, slowly but surely.
at some point soon i’ll need to address the matter of finding out who’s willing and able to play live shows with me, to get playing on stages again as a full band. but one way or another, the first few raised by swans shows will be just me.
it’s most important to me to head back to Iceland before anything else, to release the album in my own way, and to be alone for a little while, and also to play and sing the songs in some of my favourite places. i want very badly to see all of your lovely faces, and finally play for you, and that is what 2015/2016 will be devoted to (once i get a live band together again), but first i owe some secret locations that are impossibly dear to me their own private shows. because Iceland is where everything started for this album, and because not a moment passes that i don’t long to be back there.
as for a place where there are other human beings, i’m hoping to play my first show at Græni Hatturinn, a wonderful little club in Akureyri, North Iceland. Græni Hatturinn is where i tried to enjoy a public beer as a rather heavily bearded, invisible freak in the winter of 2011, one night approximately three weeks of pure, exquisite solitude into my time there, when i felt i should see what it would be like to be around people again for a few hours. i headed from the farmhouse into town, the 18 hour night creaking heavily on the ice-packed roads, but realized after not too long standing awkwardly amidst the people and the music that i’d become even more of a ghost that i’d thought was possible. which was actually not alarming in the slightest; it was a comforting realization. i went back to where i belonged; just me, the valley, and the little mouse that kept me company that winter.
as with ‘no ghostless place’, i will likely try to set up a pre-order sort of situation to help with the final financial hurdle, which is raising the money to actually make the CD’s. more on that soon. more on some live shows soon too, but again, i hope you can all be patient with me, as besides my perpetual discomfort with having an ‘online presence’, i sense that the next couple of months will be a blur.
needless to say, it’s been a long and emotional few years, writing and recording ‘Öxnadalur’ – alternately brilliant and painful and exhilarating and exhausting – but it’s all been worth it. the songs are sounding dangerously, desperately beautiful to me, even as rough, unfinished mixes. i truly can’t wait for you all to hear them.
much love, as always,
eric.