"Thank You For Last Time," Project Blackbird’s new single, sees the band’s shapeshifting sound subtly moving in a dub flavored direction. Echoing elements of spy-fi movie soundtracks, the band creates swirling grooves beneath a blanket of vocals that recall ‘60s French pop.
“It was just two words in my head: time, fiction. That was the jumping off point,” notes vocalist Ming Nagel. “I went back to Iceland a few years ago (after first going there in the '90s), and culled some of the lines in the verses and the spoken word part from a poem I wrote during that second visit. There’s a phrase in Icelandic that basically translates to ‘thank you for last time.’ It’s what Icelanders say when they bump into old friends. On the surface, the song is a love letter to Iceland; it’s an incredibly mysterious and inspiring place. On a deeper level, it’s about the elasticity of time and the process of grappling with getting older and meeting your past selves.”
As the song unfolds like a slightly funkified casual Sunday drive, a dreamscape travelogue emerges, adding an air of mystery that hints at multiple layers of meaning beneath the surface. It’s otherworldly and earthbound all at once, defying time and creating new musical fiction.
lyrics
to everything that I adore
in this isolated world:
fates and furies, nights unfurled
time – fiction – time – fiction
mounds of graymoss in the fields
reptiles swelling to reveal
cracks of their tectonic scales
time – fiction – time – fiction
outer space must pale in comparison to this
other-worldly landscape of darkening bliss
I head to sands that are still belted by a sash of volcanic boulders
it’s strange to be back again - 20 years on and feeling much older
like looking in a mirror through a hazy lens, backwards over your shoulder
later we search for the cottage, on the coastline where I stayed
waters rich in alkaline
write a somnolent slow sweep
dreams tilt on the edge of sleep
time – fiction – time – fiction
each departure is a loss
each farewell is something gained
time stealing itself from time
time – fiction – time – fiction
outer space must pale in comparison to this
other-worldly landscape of darkening bliss
here it stands – Bakkasel, my age
I know that both our stories have changed
I walk past expanses of green and unused foundations
everything is dying or in a state of gestation
the corrugated slopes bleed into the sky like an impressionist painting
credits
released March 22, 2024
Music: Varley / Read / Project Blackbird
Lyrics: Nagel
ALAN ROBERTS – electric guitar / EDDIE DUBLIN – drums / JAMIE VARLEY – bass guitar / JON READ – keyboards, trumpet / MING NAGEL – vocals
Recorded at Zephyr Studios (Leicester, UK) and Four Winds (Burrough on the Hill, UK).
Engineered by Dave Tidmarsh and Jon Read.
Produced and mixed by Dave Tidmarsh, Jon Read, and Project Blackbird.
Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper at TurtleTone Studio (New York, NY, USA).
This is the first single from Project Blackbird's forthcoming (2024) album, True Names.
The "extraordinary" Project Blackbird, as BBC's Tom Robinson has called them, offer an atmospheric and genre-fluid listening
experience that draws equally upon intellect and emotion. "Imagine a party at Ronnie Scott’s," one fan suggests, "where Sade, Björk, Jeff Beck, and David Byrne meet Portishead and then go for a late night curry to exchange ideas…sublime”....more
“Chaos Wonderland” is an expansive, probing album that weds the shimmering approach of psych rock to cinematic Britpop at its best. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 23, 2020
On their sixth studio album, The Album Leaf flesh out their post-rock dynamics with ambient synths and keyboards, driving percussion, and swelling trumpets. Bandcamp Album of the Day Aug 31, 2016
Mike Cadoo’s concept record dealing with his father’s dementia diagnosis wrenches palpable emotion from haunting ambient textures. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 26, 2022
Portland's Dao Strom describes her work as "song poems," gorgeously layered dark ambient folk soundscapes with a heavy sense of foreboding. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 6, 2020
David Bridie’s “The Wisdom Line” pairs stark, poetic lyrics with hushed, minimal instrumentation, recalling groups like Tindersticks. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 8, 2019
Eerie, indescribable, and mysterious, the music of JoJo Worthington feels like it's set in some lost, enchanted forest. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 3, 2016