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Stream Another New (Ten-Minute!) Track From Sun Kil Moon’s Upcoming Album

Sun Kil Moon

Ten minutes, 11 hours, a million thoughts… just your average Mark Kozelek song, right? No one knew what direction the man who performs as Sun Kil Moon would take after his shockingly candid (even for him) and verbiage-stuffed (even for him) Benji rocketed toward the top of more 2014 critics’ year-end lists than most records he’s released over his 20-plus-year career. (The 11-track LP also landed on SPIN‘s list of the 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years.) But in just a few weeks, the Benji follow-up, Universal Themes, will be upon us; we’ve already heard two cuts from the forthcoming record: “The Possum” and “Ali/Spinks 2.” Now comes a third track, “Garden of Lavender.”

Streaming below, the ten-minute epic begins with the stately crawl of Kozelek’s acoustic and bursts of wounded falsetto; the brightness of the guitar and sparseness of the music’s float brings to mind some serene cross between Deerhunter’s “Helicopter” and Yo La Tengo’s “Night Falls on Hoboken.” Banjo enters the mix about two-thirds of the way through, and suddenly we’re in more Benji-esque territory again, as the song turns into a spoken-word remembrance of performing a 1990s show with Mojave 3 (whose frontman, Neil Halstead, will play alongside Kozelek on several upcoming tour dates). The tune contains many recognizable hallmarks of a Kozelek song, especially the slightly delayed harmonies that sound more like stray echoes.

In other Kozelek news: The singer-songwriter recently acted alongside Michael Caine in (and contributed music to) the upcoming Paolo Sorrentino film, Youth. And on June 1, you can read an interview that Run the Jewels‘ El-P(!) conducted with Kozelek over at Sun Kil Moon’s website, where you’ll also be able to stream Universal Themes that same day. But to whet your appetite, listen to “Garden of Lavender” now and check out Kozelek’s tour schedule below.

Sun Kil Moon tour dates:

May 26 – Paris, France @ Festival Villette Sonique *
May 28 – Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Festival +
May 30 – Nîmes, France @ La Paloma Festival — This Is Not a Love Song *
May 31 – Bristol, England @ Colston Hall *
June 1 – London, England @ London Barbican *
June 3 – Leeds, England @ Irish Centre *
June 5 – Porto, Portugal @ Porto Primavera +
June 7 – Ferrarra, Italy @ Cortile del Castello Estense *
June 8 – Rome, Italy @ Auditorium Parco della Musica – Sala Petrassi +
June 9 – Milan, Italy @ Carroponte +
July 18 – Suffolk, England @ Lattitude Festival
July 19 – Manchester, England @ RNC Concert Hall
July 21 – Ghent, Belgium @ Boomtown Festival
July 22 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Bremen Theatre
July 23 – Perugia, Italy @ Umbria Festival
July 24 – Vasto, Italy @ Siren Festival
July 29 – Zurich, Switzerland @ Bogen
August 1 – Brighton, England @ St. Georges Church
August 3 – Vienna, Austria @ Vienna Arena
August 4 – Sibenik, Croatia @ SUPERUHO
August 6 – Dublin, Ireland @ National Concert Hall
August 8 – Katowice, Poland @ Off Festival
August 10 – Edinburgh, Scotland @ Edinburgh Summer Hall
August 11 – Belfast, North Ireland @ Bangor Abbey
August 13 – St. Malo, France @ La Route Du Rock Festival
September 11 – Utrecht, Holland @ Tivoli Vredenburg Hertz
September 12 – Groningen, Holland @ Take Root Festival
September 13 – Kortrijk, Belgium @ De Kreun
September 14 – Tilburg, Holland @ Theaters Tilburg Incubate
September 21 – Toronto, Ontario @ The Opera House
October 7 – Somerville, MA @ Somerville Theatre
October 9 – New York, NY @ Town Hall
October 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
October 11 – Fairfield, CT  @ StageOne

* = Neil Halstead joins Sun Kil Moon as guitarist/singer
+ = Neil Halstead joins Sun Kil Moon as guitarist/singer, Steve Shelley joins as drummer