{"product_id":"fruit-bats-the-landfill","title":"Fruit Bats - The Landfill","description":"\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eRelease Date:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e6\/12\/2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat\u003cspan\u003eexpanse. Zipping through it on the highway, you'll see cities and towns rise up in the distance, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ebut blink and you'll miss other man-made rejoinders to horizontal living dotting the landscape, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ehill after hill, built from the refuse of the past: landfills. Some of these hills make for great \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003esledding spots, parks, and trails. Others turn organic waste into compost. The Landfill is \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003esomething else entirely: a mountain dominating the landscape of Johnson's heart. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOver the course of his now 25-year career under the Fruit Bats moniker, most of Eric D. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJohnson's output has been the product of patience and fine-tuning. His songs, to borrow a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ephrase, are slow growers, given life on albums that encompass long stretches of time and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ememory. Baby Man changed that - he disallowed himself from referring to material he'd \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ebeen working on before laying the album down, utilizing the morning pages technique of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003estream-of-consciousness, observational songwriting which flowed directly into his afternoon \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003erecording sessions. It was both a breathtaking document of Johnson's skill as a singer- \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003esongwriter and an unvarnished account of the two weeks in which he recorded the album. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBaby Man's closeness to Johnson's heart and the close attention to his voice and instrument it's \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eminimalist-maximalist ethos required uncorked something in him as he wrote towards a new \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003efull band effort. \"That session was over,\" he explains, \"but there was way more to explore. I \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eliked the immediacy of it, and I wanted to see how that would translate into a full-band Fruit \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBats record.\" Within weeks, he was back in a studio, this time with his band - David Dawda \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e(bass), Josh Mease (guitars, synth), Frank LoCrasto (piano, synth), and Kosta Galanopoulos \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e(drums) - with whom Johnson has spent over a decade building Fruit Bats into one of the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emost in-demand live acts in indie rock. Listening to The Landfill, it's not hard to understand why: \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003esimply put, this band smokes. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eProducing the initial recording sessions in Washington's Bear Creek Studios, Johnson set out \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eto capture \"the sound of this band I constantly marvel at, the feeling of being in a room with \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emusicians you love and trust enough to let them cook.\" They laid most of it down on the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003efloor - no click tracks, no comped vocals, and minimal overdubs, with frequent collaborator \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThom Monahan returning to provide additional production and The Landfill's final mix. \"It's \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ehow we do things with my other band, Bonny Light Horseman, and I was curious to see how \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eit would work with Fruit Bats,\" Johnson notes. \"It's both a very personal record, and my most \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ecollaborative to date.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt's also the most live a Fruit Bats record has been since 2009's The Ruminant Band, and in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eparing back the number of tracks that typically layer a full-band song, the psychedelic, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003etechnicolor dreaminess of their sound is more vivid than ever. Time and space melt into the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003esublime as the band gels around Johnson's hazy croon on \"That Goddamn Sun,\" stretching out \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eto accommodate him as he trips from California to North Carolina. In striking a balance \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ebetween ecstatic romance and melancholia, \"Think Aboutcha\" occupies the blissful-but- \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003edoomed intersection of the E Street Band and Paul McCartney, playful but playing for stakes \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethat are larger than life, while \"Perhaps We're a Storm\" charges headlong into the unknown. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAll of these songs - most of the songs on The Landfill, in fact - mark themselves \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eimmediately as some of the best in Eric D. Johnson's ever-expanding songbook, seekers and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eanthems alike. It's the most daunting peak he's scaled yet, musically or lyrically: a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eswashbuckling set of full-band jammers couldn't be more honest and open-hearted about his \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ehopes and anxieties, and his dreams.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTracks:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e1 The Saddest Part of the Song\u003cbr\u003e2 All Wounds\u003cbr\u003e3 Think Aboutcha\u003cbr\u003e4 That Goddamn Sun\u003cbr\u003e5 Silverfish in the Sink\u003cbr\u003e6 Wild Pony Tower Moment\u003cbr\u003e7 Fishin' for a Vision\u003cbr\u003e8 Perhaps We're a Storm\u003cbr\u003e9 Hummingbird Sage\u003cbr\u003e10 The Landfill\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alliance","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53276369191209,"sku":null,"price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2436\/7337\/files\/4505243-3569224.jpg?v=1781793429","url":"https:\/\/blindtigerrecordclub.com\/products\/fruit-bats-the-landfill","provider":"Blind Tiger Record Club","version":"1.0","type":"link"}