The complexity of releasing music in the year 2020 is not lost on Robin Pecknold. "Music is both the most inessential and the most essential thing," the Fleet Foxes frontman says. "We don't need music to live, but I couldn't imagine life without it. It became a great gift to no longer carry any worry or anxiety around the album, in light of everything that is going on."

On Tuesday, right at the Autumnal Equinox, Fleet Foxes released Shore, a 15-track collection of songs comprising the band's fourth full-length studio album, and their latest since 2017's Crack-Up. "Can I Believe You," a single from the album, got its debut on The Current on Tuesday morning.

Pecknold admits that he's suffered worry and anxiety ever since the success of the band's 2008 self-titled debut. This feeling persisted for Pecknold as the year began and the work on what became Shore continued. "But since March," Pecknold explains, "with a pandemic spiraling out of control, living in a failed state, watching and participating in a rash of protests and marches against systemic injustice, most of my anxiety around the album disappeared. It just came to seem so small in comparison to what we were all experiencing together.

"In its place came a gratitude," Pecknold continues, "a joy at having the time and resources to devote to making sound, and a different perspective on how important or not this music was in the grand scheme of things."

Perhaps fittingly for 2020, Pecknold says the songs on the album are inspired by artists like Arthur Russell, Nina Simone, Sam Cook and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guebrou, all of whom, Pecknold feels, celebrated life in the face of death.

Shore was released simultaneously with a 16mm film by Kersti Jan Werdal that captures the scenery of the Pacific Northwest, the region Fleet Foxes call home. You can watch that album-length music video below.

External Link

Fleet Foxes - official site

Related

• Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes chats with Mac Wilson (2017)