The incomparable Robyn Hitchcock is back with his first new album in two years and his 21st overall, a self-titled record that arrives in April and is preceded by the song “I Want To Tell You About What I Want” — which can be streamed below.
Produced by Brendan Benson of The Ranconteurs, the 10-track Robyn Hitchcock, which follows up 2014’s The Man Upstairs, will be released April 21 by Yep Roc Records. The album was recorded in Nashville, Tenn., where Hitchcock now lives, and finds the onetime Soft Boy backed by a band of Music City vets, including guitarist Annie McCue, bassist Jon Estes and drummer Jon Radford. Emma Swift, Grant Lee Phillips, Gillian Welch and Wilco’s Pat Sansone pitch in on background vocals, too.
Hitchcock debuted the track “I Want To Tell You About What I Want” at NPR Music last week, saying:
“The original title of the song was ‘My Vision of World Empathy.’ Either we will become extinct and eventually be replaced by cats with articulated thumbs who have evolved the way apes slowly evolved into us. Or we will become empathic and mildly telepathic — people like Donald Trump won’t happen because biologically no human will be born with that lack of empathy. We will become a species that isn’t capable of bullying because we can feel what we’re doing to other people. There is obviously some evolutionary step between the human and the angel that needs to take place. Maybe when we have enough suffering credits our DNA will go, Right! Here we go! Homo angelicus — it can read your mind, it’s compassionate, it can levitate, and it’s a great lover! It shares its fish sticks with you and flies you back in time to see the Velvet Underground! That is what we need to become.”
On the touring front, Hitchcock has a few dates on the books, including a pair of performances in New York City of his 1981 solo debut Black Snake Diamond Röle backed by Yo La Tengo, plus an album-release event he’s calling “my first full-band show in Los Angeles in eons.”
See those dates below, plus check out the album tracklist and stream the opening track.
Stream: Robyn Hitchcock, “I Want To Tell You About What I Want”
Tracklist: Robyn Hitchcock, Robyn Hitchcock
1. “I Want To Tell You About What I Want”
2. “Virginia Woolf”
3. “I Pray When I’m Drunk”
4. “Mad Shelley’s Letterbox”
5. “Sayonara Judge”
6. “Detective Mindhorn”
7. “1970 In Aspic”
8. “Raymond and the Wires”
9. “Autumn Sunglasses”
10. “Time Coast”
Robyn Hitchcock tour dates:
Feb. 28: Rough Trade NYC, Brooklyn, NY (Performing ‘Black Snake Diamond Role’ with Yo La Tengo)
March 1: The Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY (Performing ‘Black Snake Diamond Role’ with Yo La Tengo)
March 2: Sellersville Theater 1894, Sellersville, PA
March 3: Once Ballroom, Somerville, MA
May 3: Troubadour, West Hollywood, CA
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS:
- Listen: Robyn Hitchcock strips down Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Ghost in You’ for new album
- Robyn Hitchcock touring with Peter Buck, playing Colin Meloy-hosted 60th birthday bash
- Stream: Robyn Hitchcock, ‘Be Still’ — off forthcoming album ‘Love From London’
- Robyn Hitchcock to release digital-only ‘Chronolology’ best-of collection
Can’t wait. Already pre-ordered the bundle with t-shirt and poster!