Naked Garden

2019年リリースされたスタジオ・アルバム "Turn Off The News (Build A Garden)"のオルタナティヴ・ヴァージョンがリリース。

アルバム収録トラックの初期のヴァージョンや最終的にアルバムに収録できなかった曲を収録。

6日目にシャングリラ・スタジオを出たとき、何か特別なものを録音したと思ったことがきっかけ。プロセスは簡単で芝生の上のコーヒーテーブルの周りに集まり、ルーカスはアコースティック・ギターで新しい歌を披露、そしてその後、スタジオに入ってテープを回す。雰囲気はとても楽しくメロウでもあったが、2テイク以上録る曲もあり、プロダクティヴなレコーディングだったため、すべての素材を1つのリリースに収めことができず、このプロジェクトは「Turn Off The News(Build A Garden)」のエピローグのような作品。

Naked Garden opens with the lazy, winding Entirely Different Stars, wherein the narrator imagines drifting off to other planets to get a different perspective on the world. Fittingly enough, that idea extends to Naked Garden itself, with the album shedding light upon its predecessor, Turn Off the News, Build a Garden. This 2020 collection was recorded at the same sessions as Turn Off the News and, indeed, nearly half of the album is devoted to alternate takes of songs from that 2019 LP. Some of these are extended, one is an acoustic variation, but they all have one thing in common: theyre looser and shaggier than the cuts on Turn Off the News. That same sensibility extends to the unheard tunes gathered. Even a song as soft and sweet as Focus on the Music -- one of many attempts to cook up a bit of a slow Southern soul groove -- feels a bit unkempt, with its loose ends proudly paraded in public, a suspicion bolstered by the studio chatter and amiably shambling performances. Naked Garden winds up being the inverse of Turn Off the News, Build a Garden. Where that album was designed to showcase the Promise of the Real as a muscular outfit capable of pleasing boundless festival crowds, Naked Garden is relaxed and intimate, the work of a group digging their own scene, but its a bit more ingratiating because of that. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine