Islands have a new album in the hopper, and it may be the Los Angeles-based art-pop project’s last … unless. “I feel like we’re kind of at a crossroads and this record is kind of me just declaring forfeiture in some ways,” said main brain Nick Thorburn via statement. “Like the third act of a movie — just after it seems like all hope is lost, that’s when the big breakthrough moment happens.” Ski Mask will arrive later this year via the man’s own Manqué label.
“This record is really about being angry,” Thorburn continued. “For better or worse, this record kind of sums up my experience thus far with being in a band.”
Indeed, first taste “Wave Forms” opens with him cooing over ominous piano hits: “I won’t write another wave and I won’t write another word after today. No wave forms out here adrift against an endless sea.” Fittingly, the song comes to us via a SoundCloud player — visually represented as a wave form, essentially.
Thorburn went on: “This record is kind of a culmination of all the different things we’ve done over the years. … All of these feelings and ideas that have been bubbling up over the course of four previous albums finally came to the surface on this one … It’s basically an essential introduction to Islands — it’s everything we’ve ever been about.” The band has explored many sounds over the years. Last year’s A Sleep & a Forgetting was the most intimate and spare yet.
Islands, Ski Mask track list:
1. “Wave Forms”
2. “Death Drive”
3. “Becoming the Gunship”
4. “Nil”
5. “Sad Middle”
6. “Hushed Tones”
7. “Here Here”
8. “Shotgun Vision”
9. “Of Corpse”
10. “We’ll Do It So You Don’t Have To”
11. “Winged Beat Drums”
Islands tour dates:
September 18 – Visalia, CA @ The Cellar Door
September 20 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
September 21 – Vancouver, British Columbia @ Media Club
September 22 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
September 24 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
September 25 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Constellation Room
September 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Eagle Rock Center for the Arts
September 27 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
October 08 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott
October 09 – Montreal, Quebec @ Il Motore
October 10 – Toronto, Ontario @ The Garrison
October 11 – Detroit, MI @ The Loving Touch
October 12 – Madison, WI @ Der Rathskeller
October 13 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
October 14 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
October 16 – Washington, DC @ The Rock and Roll Hotel
October 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
October 20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
