Weekly Release Spotlight: Fruit Bats

Posted on 8/28/2011

Fruit Bats
Tripper
Subpop

It says something when an artist can consistently produce engaging albums over the course of a decade under a single moniker. Eric D. Johnson, the backbone of Fruit Bats, has created an album that simultaneously captures the ever-changing scenery of a transient, yet celebrates taking time to do so. Having usually crafted his guitar work amongst a bed of synthesized harmonies, the production of this album was more of a lonesome journey across eleven tracks that caress the rambling inner voyager in all of us. This album embodies the soaring honesty of a weary traveler's approach to the next adventure, one day at a time.

As the summer comes to a close, this album sticks out as the melanchoic drifter who acknowledges that “The world might end tomorrow anyways,” yet engages every moment in it's existence. As the premiering track, “Tony The Tripper” encompasses that mantra of knowing the importance of the moment. Since Johnson usually records rollicking albums and tracks live, over the course of the month in which this album was recorded Johnson spent most of his time layering cheerful keyboards that overpower his classic sunny guitar work- instead creating an incredibly sun-bleached melody that demands to be played outdoors.

Overall this album acts as an unchained buoy drifting along a lazy river in the southwest. The mixture of crisp, clean guitar works cuts through the soft ambient soundscape so prevalent in “The Banishment Song” when it finally kicks in it grabs your attention and keeps it close. The songwriting in particular is stunning; each repetition of “I'm the only one who's ever believed in you” in “You're Too Weird” or “She should dance if she wants to dance” in “So Long.” Yet he doesn't just focus on downtrodden experiences- in “Dolly” and “Tangie and Ray” he expresses high points of friendships and love affairs. Tripper stands as Johnson's most fine-tuned effort to date, and offers plenty of inspiration, though it may not matter “cause the world might end tomorrow anyway.”

Written by Caleigh Souhan, Radio K Music Director

Stream: Fruit Bats - "You're Too Weird"

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