Hailed as "almost impossibly majestic and beautiful" (NPR), Shearwater's Palo Santo (2007, Matador), a suite of ethereal but disquieting art-rock centered around the life and death of the singer Nico, marked the Texan quintet's debut on the national stage. The New York Times named the album one of the year's best, and the band's singular combination of sonic abandon and restraint drew comparisons to late-period Talk Talk and Eno's early solo work. Last year's much-lauded Rook (2008, Matador) took the band into realms both richer and stranger, with a depth and grandeur that seem improbably packed into the album's tidy 35 minutes and a haunting examination of the continuing erosion of the natural world.
Shearwater's third album for Matador, The Golden Archipelago, is set for release in the US on February 23, 2010. This time, the band have created a lush, fevered portrait of life on islands, based partly on Meiburg's extensive travels to remote places, and the depth and clarity of their previous albums adorns a fierce new urgency and wildness. In conjunction with the release of Shearwater’s new album, The Golden Archipelago, singer Jonathan Meiburg and designer Mark Ohe have assembled a beautiful, full-color, 75-page, 8 x 10.5” dossier as a companion piece (which is only available for purchase here on Kickstarter).
Band Members: Jonathan Meiburg, Thor Harris, Kimberly Burke, with Kevin Schneider and Jordan Geiger.
