Pavement‘s Bob Nastanovich announced today on his podcast Three Songs that his former Silver Jews bandmate David Berman will release new music in 2019. The music will be billed under a new band named Purple Mountains (also the title of Berman’s blog) and released on Silver Jews’ longtime label Drag City, Nastanovich said. He did not share further details. It would be Berman’s first recorded output since Silver Jews’ final album Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, released in 2008.
The grain of salt portion of this news: Nastanovich, who formed Silver Jews with Berman and Stephen Malkmus, claimed in 2015 that the band was working on new music. Days later, Berman called the announcement a “prank,” telling Nashville Scene in an email, “[Nastanovich] tried to scotch my J.D. Salinger setup!” We’ve reached out to Drag City for comment on this latest tease and will update if we hear back. The label reissued Silver Jews’ 1998 album American Water in September.
Listen to Nastanovich’s announcement below at the 58:00 mark. The podcast episode also features a live acoustic recording of Silver Jews’ song “Trains Across The Sea.”
