Summer got under our skin, so we spent it going astray. Maurizio played colonialist in St. Martin; I took a flat in Budapest; Dann smoked lazy opium with the crew of a dry-docked Chinese junk in Seattle; and Tristan…um… went to LA for the weekend.

But before we left, we made demo recordings of every unreleased song in our catalog (about twenty five…). While we traipsed about the globe, our headphones were full of the loud noises we’d made back home; it was like the musical version of a Madlib. For instance, a song written four years prior about a friend who’d moved away came on while I was lost and studying a subway map. And once, while Maurizio was whiling away the humid hours in a third world brothel, one of my maudlin piano intros danced on his eardrums.

When we returned to Phoenix with a new perspective on our work, we sat down and cast our votes for a tentative tracklist for a nascent full-length album. We’ve begun pre-production at our home studio and should have a solid timeline soon. Looking beyond that, we’re beginning to flesh out the rest of the year with as many shows as possible. Starting around Mid-October we will be playing out frequent and far flung shows (I’m looking at you Salt Lake City!...).

-conan