After far too long away, indie folk heroes Fleet Foxes made their triumphant return with Crack-Up, their first album since 2011’s Helplessness Blues. They’ve been on the road in support of the album, and their stop at The Knockdown Center in Queens, New York earlier this year was filmed for an upcoming Live From The Artists Den special that premieres tomorrow on PBS SoCal. The concert film will also air on other public television stations this fall, so head here to see when/if it plays in your neck of the woods.
Before any of that, though, the band has shared an exclusive clip from the show that isn’t included in the broadcast special: A performance of Crack-Up album opener “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar.” In the clip, which is only available online, Robin Pecknold and Skyler Skjelset also talk about the significance the opening track has in regards to the rest of the album, the latter saying that it was a formative song:
“When he first showed me the first song on the record, that was sort of a thing that was very telling about what he was wanting to achieve. […] The first song is definitely […] thematic to what what the idea of this record is and how to approach the recording of it.”
Pecknold expanded on that point, saying how the simplified songwriting approach he took with the song set the tone for Crack-Up:
“I think that first song also sort of works like a Cliffs Notes, Reader’s Digest version of the album, where you can stretch out that song and that’s kind of how the album functions. […] It’s kind of this repetitive, hypnotic… I wanted it to have a lot of activity, but then the vocal’s kind of gliding on top, and it’s not as melodically busy unless it needs to be. […] That song probably set the course for the rest of [the album].
Watch the performance of “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar” above, revisit our review of Crack-Up here, and read our take on the band’s Hollywood Bowl concert here.
