Friendship Share 'Alive Twice' Off Forthcoming New LP 'Love the Stranger'

Philly-based Friendship have released a new single, "Alive Twice." The track is taken from their forthcoming new album Love the Stranger which is set for release on July 29 via Merge Records.

Like the LP, today's single-which is both sparse and gorgeous-was co-produced by the band and Bradford Krieger. Friendship's Dan Wriggins shares the inspiration for the song title: "The poet Linda Gregg dedicated her book of poetry Too Bright to See to her lover, Jack Gilbert, with an all-caps inscription: 'IT WAS LIKE BEING ALIVE TWICE.' The phrase shows up later in her poem 'The Defeated.' I wasn't going to steal it, but I looked it up and found that Gregg had taken the phrase from the Tang Dynasty poet Li Po. I think Eileen Myles talks about it, too."

Of the recording, he says, "This one went through a unique process. I recorded the delayed Wurlitzer line and vocals alone, then left the studio. Michael, Peter, and Jon, who hadn't heard the song before, went in together and improvised over it with piano, Rhodes, and organ. Finally, we dropped some of the Wurlitzer, creating an extremely cool, roomy effect." Michael Kaplan shot the video for "Alive Twice."

Wriggins says, "I kept asking Michael if we could work zombies into the video. He said it would cost too much. The Black Angel at Iowa City's Oakland Cemetery, however, is the site of some pretty creepy legends."

Friendship previously shared the album's "Hank" which saw support from Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, and WXPN, among others, and "Ugly Little Victory" about which Brooklyn Vegan said, "It's as lovely and tender as you'd expect from this band, and Dan's plainspoken yet emotive vocals sound as great as ever." Love the Stranger will be available on CD, LP, and opaque "blue galaxy" Peak Vinyl. Pre-order the album here.

In support of Love the Stranger, Friendship will be heading out on a North American tour with Tenci. The shows kick off August 2 in Nashville and conclude in Chicago on August 14. Along the way they will stop in DC, New York, Toronto, and in Philadelphia for a hometown show at Johnny Brenda's. All dates are listed below.

Love the Stranger moves like a country record skipping in just the right spot, leaving its fellow travelers longing for a place they've only visited in their dreams. Guitarist Peter Gill, drummer Michael Cormier-O'Leary, bassist Jon Samuels, and hawkeyed balladeer Dan Wriggins map out the group's particular, breathtaking landscape and invite the listener to share in its glory.

The record's images craft a symbolic language of high and low Americana, both evocative and consistently accessible. Spending time with Love the Stranger creates a community-one in which the window between the listener and the music-maker shatters in full, until all that remains are the fragments you decide to pick up together.

Love the Stranger's production is both familiar and capacious enough for pedal steel, synth strings, airy folk guitar field recordings, and MIDI pad exploration to work in vital harmony. Influenced by Friendship's punk and indie peers as much as road-star forebears like Lucinda Williams and Lambchop, Wriggins says of the recording sessions: "We all got to stretch out, chase our personal musical fixations, and build on each others' work. Bradford Krieger, our engineer at Big Nice Studio, has a mind-blowing creative energy and hundreds (thousands?) of instruments."

He recalls further: "I wanted the album to sound like Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band in the '70s. Pete wanted it to sound like a semi full of spent fuel rods, barreling towards a runaway truck ramp. Jon kept reminding us that the studio is an instrument, and Michael wanted it to sound like the breakdown two-and-a-half minutes into Shuggie Otis' 'Strawberry Letter 23.'"

Friendship is probably already your favorite band's favorite band, a long-revered IYKYK of DIY with a devoted cult following from Wawa to In-N-Out. With Love the Stranger, the Friendship universe only continues to expand and grow more open-hearted, more inviting, with every passing note. It's a record that locates the listener exactly where the listener is, and wherever that may be, makes a friend out of them, too. All said and done, the age-old maxim of "Mr. Chill" holds true: "You be real with me and I'll be real with you."

Listen to the new single here:

Friendship on Tour

May 20 Peterborough, NH - The Thing in the Spring

Aug 02 Nashville, TN - DRKMTTR*

Aug 03 Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre Side State*

Aug 04 Durham, NC - The Pinhook*

Aug 05 Washington, DC - Songbyrd*

Aug 06 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's*

Aug 07 New York NY - TV Eye*

Aug 09 Boston, MA - The Rockwell*

Aug 10 Montreal, QC - Casa del Popolo*

Aug 11 Toronto, ON - The Drake Hotel*

Aug 12 Columbus, OH - Rumba Cafe*

Aug 13 Detroit, MI - The Underground @ DIME*

Aug 14 Chicago, IL - The Hideout*

* w/ Tenci

To post a comment, you must register and login.