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Nick Thorburn on Unicorns Reunion: ‘Don’t Get Your Hopes Up’

Unicorns Reunion Nick Thorburn Reissue Tour Islands

Rumors of the Unicorns’ resurrection have been slightly exaggerated. In a new podcast interview, group co-founder Alden Penner teased the possibility of a reunion tour, fresh recording sessions, and a reissue of the lo-fi pop crew’s beloved 2003 album, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? But his former writing partner, Islands man Nick Thorburn, says though the possibility has always been there, we shouldn’t assume it’ll happen now.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he wrote to SPIN. “We are talking right now but that’s as far as it’s gotten. We’ve talked about this kind of thing many times over the years and while it’s true that this is the furthest along it’s gotten, conceptually, it’s still just talk.”

Penner’s visit to the Kreative Kontrol podcast raised hopes fairly high, however. Pitchfork excerpted several portions of the talk, including this optimistic, fairly specific bit: “We’re definitely talking about playing together and seeing what happens. And we’ll probably do some shows in the major cities we’ve played in–probably Toronto, Montreal, New York, L.A., Vancouver—that sort of thing. Whatever’s feasible and it being conditional on it being fun for us to do.”

He also said the Unicorns recently reacquired the master rights to the aforementioned album, and that a reissue and remastering “including some other recordings that never made it out” could be in the works. “The important thing right now is that we might play some shows and maybe even record some new material while we’re at it,” he teased. “These are all maybes, which have been thrown out there a lot. I guess good practice is that you do what you say.”

Thorburn, a.k.a. Nick Diamonds, has kept plenty busy, playing in projects such as Mister Heavenly, Human Highway, and Th’ Corn Gangg, not to mention releasing his fifth album under the Islands moniker last year. Dubbed Ski Mask, that most recent set continued his recent foray into more intimate, pop-dusted material (see “Becoming the Gunship” and “Wave Forms”). Also, there was that time he backed Michael Cera on a cover of Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch.”