For the new Shearwater album Fellow Travelers, due out November 25th on Sub Pop, the band’s Jonathan Meiburg decided to cover bands that he had toured with over the last ten years, and then invited members of those band’s to play on the record, provided they contributed to tracks that weren’t their own. And so that is why we have Shearwater covering Xiu Xiu‘s gut wrenchingly gorgeous cut “I Luv The Valley OH!“, off his brilliant 2004 LP Fabulous Muscles (5 Rue Christine).
Fellow Travelers is inspired by a musician’s life on the road, and it is a celebration of the friendships and comradery that Meiburg has cultivated along the way. He explains, “Audiences never see most of touring life, and it’s the hidden moments that came to mind while we were recording”. Adding a list of such poignant memories, Meiburg affectionately remembers, “…Xiu Xiu hiding stuffed animals and candy in the stacks of a university library for their devoted fans to find.” He also informs us that the British experimental folk singer and guitarist David Thomas Broughton has added a tape of “sparrows, bulbuls, and the clanking shovels of highway workers in Pyongyang, North Korea” to the track! The video for “I Luv The Valley OH!” is directed by Brannan Edgens, and he does a great job transforming a forbidden desert landscape into the perfect environment for an eery, alien love story.
