Today’s autumnal equinox will bring about many things, and chief among them are a new album and film from Fleet Foxes. Both entities are titled Shore; the LP is a 15-song collection marking the Seattle indie-folk band’s fourth studio album, and the film is a 16mm “road movie” by Kersti Jan Werdal which sets the score of the album to the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
Shore was released today (September 22) at 6:31 a.m. PT and 9:31 a.m. ET, via Anti-. Listen to the album below via Spotify, and watch the film via fleetfoxes.co. A physical release of Shore arrives February 5; pre-order it here.
“I see ‘shore’ as a place of safety on the edge of something uncertain, staring at Whitman’s waves reciting ‘death,’” says Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold. “Tempted by the adventure of the unknown at the same time you are relishing the comfort of the stable ground beneath you. This was the mindset I found, the fuel I found, for making this album.”
Between September 2018 and September 2020, Fleet Foxes recorded Shore with recording and production engineer Beatriz Artola in multiple locations, including Hudson (NY), Paris, Los Angeles, Long Island City and New York City. The album is said to be inspired by those who celebrate life in the face of death.
“Since the unexpected success of the first Fleet Foxes album over a decade ago, I have spent more time than I’m happy to admit in a state of constant worry and anxiety,” says Pecknold. “Worried about what I should make, how it will be received, worried about the moves of other artists, my place amongst them, worried about my singing voice and mental health on long tours. I’ve never let myself enjoy this process as much as I could, or as much as I should. I’ve been so lucky in so many ways in my life, so lucky to be born with the seeds of the talents I have cultivated and lucky to have had so many unreal experiences. Maybe with luck can come guilt sometimes. I know I’ve welcomed hardship wherever I could find it, real or imagined, as a way of subconsciously tempering all this unreal luck I’ve had.”
He adds: “By February 2020, I was again consumed with worry and anxiety over this album and how I would finish it. But since March, with a pandemic spiraling out of control, living in a failed state, watching and participating in a rash of protests and marches against systemic injustice, most of my anxiety around the album disappeared. It just came to seem so small in comparison to what we were all experiencing together. In its place came a gratitude, a joy at having the time and resources to devote to making sound, and a different perspective on how important or not this music was in the grand scheme of things. Music is both the most inessential and the most essential thing. We don’t need music to live, but I couldn’t imagine life without it. It became a great gift to no longer carry any worry or anxiety around the album, in light of everything that is going on. A tour may not happen for a year, music careers may not be what they once were. So it may be, but music remains essential.”
A good thing to keep in mind as a new season begins.