These New Puritans are back to announce Crooked Wing, the English duo’s first new album in five years, out on May 23rd. They’ve also revealed the album’s first two singles: “Bells” and the Caroline Polachek-assisted “Industrial Love Song.”
Written and produced by brothers Jack and George Barnett, with additional production from Bark Psychosis’ Graham Sutton, Crooked Wing is the experimental duo’s first album since 2019’s Inside the Rose. They employ field recordings, unconventional instruments, and an array of guest musicians on the album, with George Barnett describing it as “both more surreal & somehow more direct than anything we’ve ever done.”
“Industrial Love Song,” the first offering from Crooked Wing, is a moving duet between Jack Barnett and Caroline Polachek; more specifically, Jack Barnett describes it as a duet between “two cranes on a building site.” “Caroline sings the part of one crane, I sing the other; they can’t touch (their movements are controlled by the operator), but when the sun rises they hope that their shadows will cross. I like how the title George came up with misdirects expectations — it’s not that kind of industrial.”
“Bells,” on the other hand, is a seven-minute composition framed around a ringing bell, featuring twinkling piano and Jack Barnett’s delicate baritone. Devoid of drums or percussion beyond the titular bell sample employed from a field recording, the song is dramatic and reverberant. “This song started with a field recording we made of a bell in a small Orthodox Greek church,” Jack said of “Bells.” “You can hear it in the song, and the rest of the song grew out of it. That one bell strike set a lot of the album in motion.” Stream both new songs below.
Crooked Wing is out May 23rd via Domino.
Crooked Wing Album Artwork:
Crooked Wing Tracklist:
01. Waiting
02. Bells
03. A Season In Hell
04. Industrial Love Song
05. I’m Already Here
06. Wild Fields (I Don’t Want To)
07. The Old World
08. Crooked Wing
09. Goodnight
10. Return
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