Leave it to Kurt Vile to make a song about beaches sound perfect for fall. The Philly haze-rocker is set to release a new EP, So Outta Reach, on November 8 via Matador Records. His label has already posted the reflective, finger-picked acoustic cut “The Creature,” and now comes “Life’s a Beach.” Listen below!
“Life’s a Beach” is a rootsy, autumn-gold strummer with galloping drums and a brief harmonica solo. In fact, it’s almost the kind of tunefully faded rocker that made Pete Yorn a gold-seller a decade ago, though Vile keeps most everything draped in his signature fog. The title might scan as a parody of the beach-themed music that has bubbled up from the underground for a few years now — see Wavves’ The King of the Beach or Best Coast’s Crazy for You, to name perhaps two of the best-known examples. The lyrics, meanwhile, appear locked in boyhood nostalgia that brings to mind his peer (and Deerhunter-Atlas Sound main main) Bradford Cox: “I wanna be a boy / Don’t wanna be a man / I got a dangerous memory / Got a memory, man,” Vile begins. But it all ends “so outta reach,” lost in fuzzy swells of guitar noise.
The six-song So Outta Reach EP follows this year’s Smoke Ring for My Halo LP, which displays “rock’s most believable sneer,” per our glowing . The EP contains five original songs recorded during the Halo sessions, but reworked this summer with producer John Agnello (Male Bonding, Sonic Youth, the Hold Steady), plus a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Downtown Train.”
A deluxe two-CD version of Smoke Ring for My Halo will also arrive on November 8. Featuring a new cover color, the deluxe edition will include the So Outta Reach EP on its second disc, all for the same price as the regular album.
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5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Kurt Vile
Vile is currently on tour, with shows supporting the Flaming Lips coming up later this month. Check out the full list of concert dates here.
Hear It: Kurt Vile, “Life’s a Beach”
