After taking a quick detour into award-winning authorship in 2010 (what do you mean, you haven’t read Just Kids yet?? It’s awesome, do it), Patti Smith has announced her return to the ol’ music game with the June release of studio album number 11 on Columbia Records, Banga. Smith’s last outing was the covers record Twelve, released way back in 2007, and her most recent album of original compositions dates back to the pre-colonial days of 2004, when Smith released Trampin’, an album about trampin’.
Not one to keep listeners waiting, Smith released the first single from the new record, “April Fool,” for purchase on iTunes (or for free listens on Spotify) concurrently with the announcement. The track features Tom Verlaine (on guitar?) and showcases Smith’s easy, breezy vocal stylings. Back for all the tracks recorded at Electric Lady Studios in NYC are Smith’s usual collaborators: Tony Shanahan on bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums, and Lenny Kaye on guitar.
Not sounding intellectual enough? Well, Rolling Stone fixes that by reporting that Smith likes to explain the album thusly: “There is an exploratory spirit in the songs that make up Banga, including a melodic overture imagining the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci to the New World in 1497 (‘Amerigo’)”. Other songspirations include Johnny Depp’s birthday (“You’re a big boy now, get a haircut already”) and Amy Winehouse’s death (“This is the Girl who loved mice”). Get your Smith on June 5!
Banga tracklisting:
01. Amerigo
02. Fuji-san
03. April Fool
04. This Is the Girl
05. Banga
06. Maria
07. Tarkovsky (The Second Stop is Jupiter)
08. Mosaic
09. Nine
10. Seneca
11. Constantine’s Dream
12. After the Gold Rush
• Patti Smith: http://www.pattismith.net
• Columbia: http://www.columbiarecords.com
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