my education come from Austin, but before they headed into the studio to record their seventh album, Schiphol, they realized they wanted to get out. A grueling European trek capped a decade and a half spent on the road plying heady and dramatic post-rock with everyone from The Sea and Cake to A Place to Bury Strangers, and all of that wandering and rootlessness began to take its toll.
You can hear it in “Class A,” whose video we’re premiering today. It begins with a simple acoustic guitar figure that sounds like it’s being plucked on a back porch. Slowly, the band begins to fill in the space—funereal viola, astral guitars, gentle piano. As they come together, they seem to sigh, occasionally moving gently in the direction of hope and fulfillment before settling back into the lamentation at the song’s core. It’s a subtle and nuanced showing, an emotional kaleidoscope that spins at a gratifyingly slow rate. Check it out below.
Schiphol is out March 3 via Headbump.
