Photo: Press
Ezra Furman will return with a brand new album, Transangelic Exodus on 9 February
The follow to 2015’s blisteringly well-received Perpetual Motion People will include this thoughtful new track, which marks a notable sonic progression from the old-timey rock’n’roll doo wop of cuts from his previous album including ‘Lousy Connection’ and ‘Body Was Made’.
In a characteristically thoughtful statement, Furman has pulled back the veil on his creative process this time around:
‘2016 was a hard year. While the political and cultural conversation devolved in a very threatening way, we travelled and toured a lot.’
‘We saw ourselves coming to the end of what we were, and we wanted to become something new.’
‘[The new album] is not a concept record, but almost a novel, or a cluster of stories on a theme, a combination of fiction and a half-true memoir. A personal companion for a paranoid road trip. A queer outlaw saga.’
“The narrative thread is I’m in love with an angel, and a government is after us, and we have to leave home because angels are illegal, as is harbouring angels.’
‘The term ‘transangelic’ refers to the fact people become angels because they grow wings. They have an operation, and they’re transformed. And it causes panic because some people think it’s contagious, or it should just be outlawed.’
‘The album still works without the back story, though. What’s essential is the mood — paranoid, authoritarian, the way certain people are stigmatized. It’s a theme in American life right now, and other so-called democracies.’
In keeping with the theme of fantastical reinvention, Furman’s always-charismatic backing band have changed their name from The Boy-Friends to The Visions.
To support the new release, Furman and band will tour the US in February and March.
Ezra Furman's last album was album of the year on Gigwise in 2015. Read the review here
Transangelic Exodus Tracklist:
01. Suck the Blood From My Wound
02. Driving Down to L.A.
03. God Lifts Up The Lonely
04. No Place
05. The Great Unknown
06. Compulsive Liar
07. Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill
08. From A Beach House
09. Love You So Bad
10. Come Here Get Away From Me
11. Peel My Orange Every Morning
12. Psalm 151
13. I Lost My Innocence
