How's this for the first day of fall? Fleet Foxes has just released their fourth studio album.
The Robin Pecknold-led outfit confirmed on Monday a new album was coming today. And now, just hours later, it has arrived. The new record, titled Shore, is available now on streaming platforms and can be pre-ordered for physical copies releasing on Feb. 5.
Coinciding with the album's release is the debut of a 16 mm road movie of the same name by Kersti Jan Werdal, which showcases the beautiful landscapes of the Pacific Northwest set to the score of the new album.
Despite its sudden release today, the new record had been in the works for some time, having been recorded throughout Hudson, New York; Los Angeles; Paris; Long Island; and New York City between September of 2018 and September of this year.
From Robin Pecknold:
Since the unexpected success of the first Fleet Foxes album over a decade ago, I have spent more time than I’m happy to admit in a state of constant worry and anxiety. Worried about what I should make, how it will be received, worried about the moves of other artists, my place amongst them, worried about my singing voice and mental health on long tours. I’ve never let myself enjoy this process as much as I could, or as much as I should. I’ve been so lucky in so many ways in my life, so lucky to be born with the seeds of the talents I have cultivated and lucky to have had so many unreal experiences. Maybe with luck can come guilt sometimes. I know I’ve welcomed hardship wherever I could find it, real or imagined, as a way of subconsciously tempering all this unreal luck I’ve had. By February 2020, I was again consumed with worry and anxiety over this album and how I would finish it. But since March, with a pandemic spiraling out of control, living in a failed state, watching and participating in a rash of protests and marches against systemic injustice, most of my anxiety around the album disappeared. It just came to seem so small in comparison to what we were all experiencing together. In its place came a gratitude, a joy at having the time and resources to devote to making sound, and a different perspective on how important or not this music was in the grand scheme of things. Music is both the most inessential and the most essential thing. We don’t need music to live, but I couldn’t imagine life without it. It became a great gift to no longer carry any worry or anxiety around the album, in light of everything that is going on. A tour may not happen for a year, music careers may not be what they once were. So it may be, but music remains essential. This reframing was another stroke of unexpected luck I have been the undeserving recipient of. I was able to take the wheel completely and see the album through much better than I had imagined it, with help from so many incredible collaborators, safe and lucky in a new frame of mind.
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Hear the full album below.
