It’s been a while now since Phosphorescent released the excellent Muchacho in 2013, but new music from Matthew Houck is on the way. When he announced his upcoming record C’est La Vie towards the end of July, he did so with the song “New Birth In New England,” an upbeat, midtempo track with shades of alt. country and soft rock that was a nice way for Houck to reintroduce himself.
Phosphorescent was the musical guest on The Late Late Show last night, and they brought the song to Corden’s stage. They captured the joyful energy of the track live, which prompted bursts of applause from the TV audience during the song, something you don’t really see a lot during late night performances.
Houck previously talked about making the record, saying that the process had a lot of dormant periods: “Weirdly enough, this whole time I felt like I was working on an album — even when there were long stretches when all the stuff was pushed under a tarp, and I was building walls, painting, running wires. At one point, I don’t think I even touched an instrument for four months. There’s a piano at the house, but I wasn’t actively doing any composing. But I knew there was a record I wanted to make. It did take long enough that the idea of what it was going to be had time to mutate.”
Watch Phosphorescent perform “New Birth in New England” above.
C’est La Vie is out 10/5 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.
