As usual every January, I’ve barely wrapped my head around the previous year while new songs and albums are emerging for what will likely make for another promising 12 months of music.
The first song to grab my attention for the new year comes from the Yuma, Ariz.-born Shawn Foree (aka Digital Leather), whose forthcoming full-length, Modern Problems, will be released Feb. 14 on FDH Records. The album is Foree’s first since the death of his good friend Jay Reatard last January and, in his own words, “is a narrative of the grieving process.”
“Lyrically, this is personal stuff. I’m letting it all hang out – the beautiful as well as the hideous. I was conscientious about the lyrics, but not to the point of tedium.”
The first leak, “Young Doctors in Love,” immediately pulls you into Foree’s fuzzed-out synths and emotional state of mind. He says he created an alter-ego, writing the album from the vantage point of a character who lost a loved one, and “Young Doctors” expresses that from the opening lines: “Just for one more night, let’s relive the past / You and I both know it’s disappearing fast.” (Later, he sings, “Hey, I think we’re alone now,” a coy nod to a recognizable refrain.)
Modern Problems, the follow-up to 2009’s Warm Brother (Fat Possum), is available for pre-order at FDH.
This post also reminds me that I’ve never written anything about Digital Leather’s 2009 cover of MGMT’s “Time to Pretend,” a brooding, lo-fi rendition that (I dare say) I prefer to the original. You can still grab it at Stereogum.