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This is the first single, from my new album. Click here to listen: https://astronautalis.bandcamp.com/track/the-way-i-am

Produced & Mixed by: @SubpYao
Roel van Wijk - trumpet
Dirk Bosman - trombone
Tim Paters - saxophone
Bass: Sam Verstraten
Backing Vocals: @Bartees_Strange

Artwork: @AndyMcAlpineDesign

This was supposed to come out in April, and the album was all set for a September release, with a full US and EU tour to follow in October and November...then all hell broke loose with Corona.

As borders locked down, and the world ground to a halt, I talked to my team, and everyone advised that we push everything back.  This totally gutted me, because Subp Yao and I have been working on the album for so long (he is producing the entire thing), it is such a departure from anything I have done, and I was just so ready for the world to hear it.

But, the other exciting part of this album forced us to make the tough call to push it all back.  We’ve decided we’re done with record labels (outside of Europe...shout out to Cargo Record for handling us there), and we are DIY or die from here on out.  So, we’ll be self-releasing this record (outside of the EU), and it only made sense, that if we are going to do this ourselves, we needed to do it right.  So, we pushed the album release back, to very early 2021 with a US & EU tours to follow (will be announcing that soon).  I hated doing that, but it was the right thing to do. 

BUT...I didn’t want to wait that long to start sharing this music with y’all...and so we decided to stick with ONE PART of the original plan, and release the first single before the summer starts.  We picked one of my favorite songs off the album, “The Way I Am” and scheduled everything for June 5th.  Then all hell broke loose in Minneapolis. 

If you have been following me on social media at all, you know what this all means for me, both as a long time resident of Minneapolis, and as an American.  Hell, if you have listened to the last two albums I made you’ll know what all this means to me.  I felt so heartbroken and angry in the last 10 days, so worried for my friends in MPLS, and so furious at my country, it felt hard to think about releasing music.  It felt hard to think about anything.

As the day got closer, I couldn’t decide what to do about it all, so I talked to some friends, and the team, and my wife, and everyone’s general consensus was...”who knows WHEN there will every be a ‘GOOD’ time to release music again?  Put out the damn song.”

So here we are, dropping a wavy little summer banger as Rome burns.  It ain’t a firetruck to put out the flames, but maybe it is a glass of water to quench your thirst in all this mayhem?  I am glad I asked them all, just posting the song to bandcamp last night gave me the first shot of real joy I have felt in a while.  I needed to put this out, at the very least, for my own brain.

I am going to be honest, we’re going to need every nickel we can get to property put the full length album out our ourselves, but right now, there are people who need it more.  So, today, I’ll be donating all my Bandcamp profits from this song to:

African American Youth Harvest, Lake Street Council, and Unicorn Riot

Bandcamp is waving their share of revenue again, so even more money goes to me, which means even more money goes to these great organizations.  It a great feeling to be a link in that chain. 

There will be more info on the album, and the tours, plus an INCREDIBLE video for this song coming soon, but for now, keep protesting, keep donating, keep reading, keep informed, and keep the pressure up on your government.  And if all that gets exhausting, you need a break, and you want to hear a a weird ass trippy little love song to escape for a few minutes...then I got you.

Stay safe y’all.

Thanks for being there to listen to my work, you don’t know how much it means to me right now.

I have been working on this project with some of the gents from the stargaze orchestra since 2018 at PEOPLE in Berlin.It started out as a test, they create music on shifting and complex time signatures that is impossible for me to freestyle over, an…

I have been working on this project with some of the gents from the stargaze orchestra since 2018 at PEOPLE in Berlin.

It started out as a test, they create music on shifting and complex time signatures that is impossible for me to freestyle over, and I try to figure out how to make it work.

Since the first improvised performance, we added another bass guitar, and it has grown, reformed, and is now solidifying into a full album.

Performed on two bass guitars, two drum kits, and a grand piano, this is not like anything I have ever done, and I am pretty sure it is not like anything you’ve ever seen.

Tour in April.
Album coming soon.

FOUR FISTS IN EUROPE!

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AMERICAN TOUR w/ Shiftee, & Angel Davanport

10/16/18 Omaha NE - Slowdown
10/17/18 Kansas City MO - Riot Room
10/18/18 Ft. Collins CO - Hodi's Half Note
10/19/18 Colorado Springs CO - The Black Sheep
10/20/18 Denver CO - Marquis Theatre
10/21/18 Salt Lake City UT - Urban Lounge
10/23/18 Portland OR - Doug Fir Lounge
10/24/18 Seattle WA - Nectar Lounge
10/26/18 San Francisco CA - Bottom of the Hill
10/27/18 Los Angeles CA - The EchoPlex
10/28/18 Phoenix AZ - Valley Bar
10/29/18 Tucson AZ - 191 Toole
10/31/18 Austin TX - Barracuda
11/1/18 Dallas TX - Deep Ellum
11/2/18 Houston TX - The Studio at Warehouse Live
11/3/18 New Orleans LA - One Eyed Jack's
11/4/18 Atlanta GA - Aisle 5
11/6/18 Raleigh NC - King's
11/7/18 Washington DC - DC9
11/8/18 Philadelphia PA - Boot & Saddle
11/9/18 Brooklyn NY - Rough Trade
11/10/18 Boston MA - Sonia
11/13/18 Pontiac MI - The Pike Room
11/14/18 Cleveland OH  - Beachland Ballroom
11/15/18 Columbus OH - The Basement
11/16/18 Chicago IL - Empty Bottle

EUROPEAN TOUR w/ Subp Yao

9/1/19 Brno Czech Rep 🇨🇿Kabinet Muz
10/1/19 Olomouc Czech Rep 🇨🇿Jazz Tibet Club
11/1/19 Bratislava Slovakia 🇸🇮Fuga
12/1/19 Trencin Slovakia 🇸🇮Kino Luc
13/1/19 Prague Czech Rep 🇨🇿Lucerna Music Bar
15/1/19 Amsterdam Netherlands 🇳🇱Sugarfactory
16/1/19 Glasgow United Kingdom 🇬🇧The Hug & Pint
17/1/19 Manchester United Kingdom 🇬🇧Soup Kitchen
18/1/19 Bristol United Kingdom 🇬🇧Hy Brasil
19/1/19 London United Kingdom 🇬🇧Birthdays
22/1/19 Winterthur Switzerland 🇨🇭Kraftfeld
23/1/19 Berlin Germany 🇩🇪Urban Spree
24/1/19 Dresden Germany 🇩🇪Groovestation
25/1/19 Darmstadt Germany 🇩🇪Oetinger Villa
26/1/19 Hamburg Germany 🇩🇪Hafenklang

 

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I am really excited to announce that I will be giving a talk on Friday, as a part of the Creative Mornings lecture series.  Creative Mornings, if you don't know, is a giant international organization that connects creatives and creative minded people, through monthly talks centered around a set theme.

So, get up early, come on out to the Commons in downtown Minneapolis, enjoy some free coffee, and listen to me talk about my career, and creative commitment!

HERE FOR MORE INFO: https://creativemornings.com/talks/astronautalis

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I couldn’t find any pictures of Bren/Alias that i took, they’re probably all trapped on some broken hard drive somewhere?  So, I did my own rework on photos Matty took on the Alias & Tarsier tour back in 2006.  That was Bren’s last tour, and i am pretty sure he lost money on it, because he let me open up for them.  I am almost 100% certain he KNEW he was going to lose money on it IF he brought us out, and asked us to join them anyway.  I think, he saw how hungry we were, and he gave us that chance...at his own expense.  That was just the kind of guy Bren was. 

I couldn’t find any photos i took on that tour, but i did find this one video of me, Brock, and Bren trying to get the vibrating bed to work at the Thunderbird Motel in Missoula, MT...yes, the motel from “Secrets On Our Lips”.  I put this crappy video up, because of Bren’s deadpan delivery of “you need to go ask for your fuckin’ money back”.  Kills me every time.  Bren was as funny as he was giving.  I wish i had audio of him doing his “leather hats & Hennessy” voice, or his “DUDE! TURN IT DOWN!” impression of Brock.  Those still make us laugh so hard, that we do impressions of his impression...over a decade later. 

Bren became my friend, but before that, he was basically a hero.  Beyond what he and the entire Anticon crew did to enable people like me to want to push boundaries in rap, I remember listening to his music specifically and thinking, “god, if i could only get beats like THAT!” The way he layered his drums, mixing breaks with drum machines, his understanding of melody, his contrasting live instruments with samples and synths, making beautiful music that KNOCKED!  There is so much i learned from obsessing over his work, from Deep Puddle, all the way into his instrumental stuff, straight on to his last album.  You can’t listen to people like Tycho, Washed Out, etc, without understanding that Bren did a lot of that, over a decade before them.  Listen to the album “Muted” (from 2003), and tell me i’m wrong.  I have literally listened to everything he has ever released, not just because he is the homie, but because first and foremost, I am a fan.  When he put out “Unseen Sights” with Markus Acher (from The Notwist), i must have listened to that song for hours and hours on end...like I was trying to absorb it’s power, perhaps?  “Well Water Black” still may be one of my favorite songs that Yoni has ever been involved with.  It is such an incredible collaboration between the two of them.  So when Bren sent me the beat that would later become “Dimitri Mendeleev”, it felt truly unbelievable.  I was amazed that my career had brought me to this point, where i could just text Alias, ask him for a beat, and he would give me one.  I was in Berlin, and woke up in the middle of the night to see the email from him on my phone.  I shot out of bed, scrambled to find headphones, and stayed up till dawn, in the dirty living room of Brunnenstraße, playing the beat over and over till the song was done.  A lot of songs, feel wobbly once they’re written, like one false move between the writing and recording, could send them toppling, like Bambi, trying to walk on the ice.  That one, i knew was strong, the second i finished it.  Writing it felt magical, like maybe i HAD absorbed some of his powers?

I was planning on hitting him up for music for my next record, because i loved the direction he went on his last solo album, “Pitch Black Prism”.  
So, it goes. 

Right now, a lot of people are telling these stories, thinking these thoughts, running over these memories, because Bren really was that guy.  Funny as hell, supportive beyond belief, relentlessly giving, and true as they come.  A giant man, full of giant love.  So many of our favorite musicians have gotten so much from Bren; from beats, to laughs, to beers, to an opening slot on a real tour playing real clubs for the first time; and all of that pales in comparison to what his friends and family got from him.  In the last 10 years, his focus was on them, still making music, but his life was about making a life, making a family, and being with his wife Jenn, back home in Maine.  All of which, I know, presented it’s own fresh challenges, and victories, but every time i made my way up there, and got to see him, he looked happy.  Always ready with a giant hug, gray now streaking his beard, kids were the conversation, and he was every bit the proud and funny father.  Some musicians, when they leave the road, it feels a bit like defeat, like a cowboy hanging up the spurs, with Bren, it felt like success.

This is such a loss.

For as much as Bren meant to me, for as lucky as i feel, to have counted him as a friend, I barely saw him anymore.  Lives diverge over time, I come through Maine less than i used to, we mostly spoke on social media, through jokes.  So, I can’t imagine, can’t even conceive what the loss must be like for people who got to see him all the time.  What pain must be felt right now, by those that got to share a life Bren.  His close friends, his family, his wife, and his kids.  I am really having a hard time finding the words to describe how much he brought to the world, i can’t find something big enough, or positive enough, there are no words filled with enough love to describe Bren.  Maybe in time, i will find those words, but for now, all i can picture, all i can think of, is the size of the hole that is left in the universe now that he is gone. 

What a great musician, what a great man, and what a loss. 

Rest In Peace, Bren

NOTE: if you would like to donate to his memorial fund, to help support his wife Jenn, and their two beautiful children, you can visit this page: https://www.gofundme.com/brendonwhitney

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Really excited two things! 

1. As you can see from above, I am finally returning to Canada on tour!

annnnnd...

2.  I just put out a new song with the big homie Factor Chandelier!  The song "The Dirtbike" is based on a dream i had about finding a dirtbike in Syria. 

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Both are available, with all the info thanks to the fine folks at EXCLAIM!! 
give it a look, and a listen:

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/astronautalis_plots_canadian_tour_shares_the_dirt_bike