Fruit Bats – Baby Man

Description

Artist: Fruit Bats | Label: Merge | Format: LP | Genre: Rock | Album Condition: New | Cover Condition: Sealed

Fruit Bats
Baby Man
Merge 877

Baby Man, the new album by Fruit Bats, is like nothing else in Grammy-nominated songwriter Eric D. Johnsons catalog. Little in the arc of his careerincluding Fruit Bats evolution from home recording project to rollicking roadshow, his solo output, and his work with Bonny Light Horsemanpoints the way to this album, in which his only accompaniment, aside from the occasional blush of synthesizer, is a guitar, banjo, or piano. Save for producer Thom Monahan, reuniting with Johnson for the first time since Fruit Bats 2019 breakthrough Gold Past Life, its just Johnson in the room, meaning that when the turntables needle meets Baby Mans groove, its just him and the listener, mutually in for a reckoning. Monahans return to the booth was vital: having mapped the outer limits of Eric D. Johnsons musical imagination, nobody was better equipped for the deepest trip yet into his soul. Baby Man is an intimate album, but rather than deliver a stripped-down or back-to-basics approach to the Fruit Bats sound, its introspection is rendered at epic scale. Its minimalist-maximalism, Johnson says of his and Monahans approach. There are fewer tracks on each songfour or five at most compared to recent albums where thered maybe be five tracks on a song just for synthsbut this is me at my most hi-fi. What he and Monahan do to striking effect on Baby Man is explore the full power and range of his voice. Pushed forward in the mix, Johnsons vocalsa showstopping element of his craft have new purpose and depth on Baby Man, breathing life into some of the rawest songs hes ever written into being, actively finding the heart in the lyrics sometimes just hours after theyd been penned. A text sent to Monahan one morningIm just trying to write a couple more songslater becomes the first line of Puddle Jumper, a finger-picked heartbreaker whose only competition for the crown of Most Emotionally Devastating Fruit Bats Song is the other eight Johnson originals on this album. Stuck in My Head Again finds Johnson pouring himself out over his guitar, his voice alternately contemplative and softly raging, straining to keep the reverie he conjures from his delicate playing from crumbling beneath the weight. It and opener Let You People Down are what Johnson refers to as the albums mission statements, songs about love and loss and disappointment, about how a life can get lived and wisdom can be gained, but how theres always going to be more to learn. Its all there in the lyrics, but whats striking is how Johnson processes them, how, in a room where the only heart laid bare is his own, he is at once self-effacing and tender. Its about a lot of things and its about rebirth, Johnson says of title track Baby Man, which is slippery and true to the song and album, its dark night spent contemplating his place in life bleeding into other nights where he found himself thinking about the Los Angeles wildfires, his neighbors new dog, his own dog (about which he wrote the staggering Creature from the Wild), his songs, and songs hes always loved. Again and again, Baby Man sees Johnson ask a central question: Is any of this worth it? The album itself is the answer, a resounding yes against the pain and struggle Johnson surfaced from to record it. At times it feels as if there is no horizon on Baby Man, barely a room beyond the space Eric D. Johnson occupies. Then the intensity of this gaze is brokenby a creaking chair, by a pattern thumped against a guitar, by the gentle twinkle of a synth, by a particularly gorgeous couplet and suddenly one is grateful just to be in that space with him. There are no Fruit Bats albums like Baby Man. None until this point have demanded this kind of attention. Its a linchpin in Johnsons career, one that not only opens Fruit Bats up to a thrilling future but recontextualizes his past, arguing that he is one of his generations great singer-songwriters and will be for some time to come.

Includes:
Let You People Down
Two Thousand Four
Stuck in My Head Again
Baby Man
Creature From the Wild
Puddle Jumper
First Girl I Loved
Moon’s Too Bright
Building a Cathedral
Year of the Crow

NEW SEALED LP