In the past few months, Tucson's Mute Swans have signed to Hit The North/Wooden Tooth and released the songs "Hypnosis Tapes" and "Cocteau Swans," their first releases since the death of their guitarist Thomas Sloane. Now, the shoegaze band is announcing their sophomore effort Skin Slip, which was recorded before he passed.
"A lot of the push to get the record out there was to do justice to the work that we did with him," Mike Barnett says, continuing:
Everybody loved his guitar playing. People would come up to me after shows and be like, "His guitar player was so amazing." I think it's going to be important for people to have one of his last works out there. I think it's his best. I think these are probably our best songs. It's probably his best playing. It's him at the top of his game.
The lead single, "Phantasms Of The Living," is out today and features LA meditative-pop artist Sonoda. About it, Barnett explains:
Several years ago I got into reading books about non-duality. The lyrics of this song were inspired by a British non-dualist named Tony Parsons but the title actually comes from a 19th century book about ghosts of people who are still alive. There's a connection there but, anyway, we were very excited after writing this song together. This song is one of our favorites. And Lisa (Sonoda) singing on it was the absolute cherry on top.
Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Hypnosis Tapes"
02 "Like A Chump"
03 "Mental Relaxation"
04 "Phantasms Of The Living" (Feat. Sonoda)
05 "Shadow Of"
06 "In The Mind's Eye"
07 "Cocteau Swan" (Feat. Citrus Clouds)
08 "Malaise"
09 "Skin Slip"
10 "Another Simple Pleasure"
Skin Slip is out 3/6 via Hit The North/Wooden Tooth. Pre-order it here.
