The marriage of folk and electronic music has always been perilously close to divorce. But if there’s one wonderful Romeo of a dude who’s always out there fightin’ to make this thing work, it’s Mind Over Mirrors’ Chicago-based, harmonium/synth playing loverboy Jaime Fennelly, who has just announced that he’s monogamously hooked-up with (ironically) the Paradise of Bachelors label for the release of his sixth studio album.
The new one, which follows up 2015’s Circuit Des Yeux “collabor-album” The Voice Calling, is entitled Undying Color, and its luminous swirl of exuberant fiddle tunes and melancholic drones is due February 17 as an LP, CD, and download (any of which you can pre-order here or here at your leisure). It was recorded by Fennelly in isolation over two weeks spanning the 2015 winter solstice at Wisconson’s Red Clover Ranch and fleshed-out with overdubs the following spring at Chicago’s MINBAL studio with engineer Cooper Crain (Bitchin’ Bajas). And speaking of overdubs, it also marks the first Mind Over Mirrors record to feature a full ensemble, including the Haley Fohr of the aforementioned Circuit Des Yeux, Janet Beveridge Bean of Eleventh Dream Day, Jim Becker of Califone, and Jon Mueller of Death Blues and Volcano Choir. Talk about commitment!
But that’s not all: Fennelly is such a folk-tronic sweetheart that he also just premiered the album’s first single, “Restore & Slip” at an adorable little place you may have heard of called NPR, a rushing mashup of La Monte Young-style minimalism and Appalachian folk. Check it down below, and catch the full-quartet live at a few shows this December if you’re around the Midwest. I dunno guys; I’ve just got a good feeling. This relationship might work out after all.
Undying Color tracklist:
01. Restore & Slip
02. Gravity Wake
03. Glossolaliac
04. Gray Clearer
05. Splintering
06. To The Edges
07. 600 Miles Around
Mind Over Mirrors live:
12.16.16 - Milwaukee, WI - Acme Records
12.17.16 - Chicago, IL - Bohemian National Cemetery w/ William Basinski, Robert Beatty (Beyond The Gate)