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Future Islands - "The Far Field" Out Now
Future Islands : "The Far Field" Out Now
7th April 2017

"Robust... melodically rich and instantly warm" - The New York Times
“The whole thing nicely evokes a rainy Eighties afternoon awash in heartache and MTV" 
- Rolling Stone
"The rare indie rock act that embraces emotionality—in themselves and their audience" - GQ
“To make warm, immediate pop music that sounds so out of the ordinary is a rare feat.” - Q
"A set of songs that seep, creep, and grow in strength." - NME
“Future Islands have captured their humanity in all its sparkling, chaotic glory.” - DIY
"If passion is pain, then Future Islands represents that in a physical, emotional, and musical sense” - Esquire
"I suspect that [Future Islands] may be in the process of securing their place in the lineage of the Great American Rock Band."  - The Line of Best Fit (Album of the Week)
"Heavy stuff...this is a band with a very particular sound, one that no other band would try to imitate even if it could" Stereogum (Album of the Week)
Record Collector **** | Q **** | MOJO **** | NME ****
DIY **** | Dork **** | The Skinny **** | NARC ****

 

"The Far Field", the new record by Future Islands, is released worldwide today.

To celebrate the album release, Future Islands play the first of a number of special hometown shows at the Ottobar in Baltimore tonight.  You can live-stream the show via Pitchfork, from 10:45pm EST, via their Facebook page and pitchfork.com.  All details available here.

"The Far Field" is out now.  It is available digitally, on 180gm white and standard black LP, CD, cassette formats and as a unique, first-of-it's-kind miniature LP.
You can buy the album now via 4AD here.
You can buy via all digital platforms here.
You can stream the record on all platforms here.

"The Far Field" refines and builds on the breakthroughs of Future Islands' 2014 album Singles, bursting with undeniable hooks and disarmingly honest lyrics written by Samuel T. Herring (vocals, lyrics), William Cashion (bass, guitars) and Gerrit Welmers (keyboards, programming).

After the success of Singles and the hundreds of Future Islands shows played in that period, the trio came off the road and jumped straight into other projects, releasing albums as Peals(Cashion’s project with Bruce Willen from Double Dagger), Moss Of Aura (Welmers), Hemlock Ernst (Herring), and the Snails (Cashion and Herring), whilst Herring also lent his idiosyncratic vocals to collaborations with Clams Casino and BADBADNOTGOOD. 

The band began writing new material in January 2016 on the coast of North Carolina, and continued throughout the year in Baltimore before road-testing these songs at a series of secret shows under fake names.  Later that year, they travelled to Los Angeles to record with Grammy Award-winning producer John Congleton at the legendary Sunset Sound, where everyone from The Beach Boys to Prince have laid down masterpieces.  With string and horn arrangements by Patrick McMinn, The Far Field is the first Future Islands record to feature live drums by Michael Lowry, who joined the band prior to their sensational performance of ‘Seasons (Waiting On You)’ on David Letterman’s late night TV show.  Blondie’s Debbie Harry also makes a guest appearance, in a duet with Herring on penultimate track ‘Shadows’.  

Across The Far Field’s twelve chest-pounding love songs and odes to the road, Future Islands brilliantly expresses the band’s central themes they’ve been exploring for the last decade: that there is power in emotional vulnerability, that one can find a way to laugh and cry in the same breath – and be stronger for it.