{"product_id":"fruit-bats-the-landfill-cd","title":"Fruit Bats - The Landfill | CD","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"aec-product-description\" class=\"col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-12\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"aec-desc-review collapse\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat\u003c\/p\u003e\nexpanse. Zipping through it on the highway, you'll see cities and towns rise up in the distance,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebut blink and you'll miss other man-made rejoinders to horizontal living dotting the landscape,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehill after hill, built from the refuse of the past: landfills. Some of these hills make for great\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esledding spots, parks, and trails. Others turn organic waste into compost. The Landfill is\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esomething else entirely: a mountain dominating the landscape of Johnson's heart.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eOver the course of his now 25-year career under the Fruit Bats moniker, most of Eric D.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eJohnson's output has been the product of patience and fine-tuning. His songs, to borrow a\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ephrase, are slow growers, given life on albums that encompass long stretches of time and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ememory. Baby Man changed that - he disallowed himself from referring to material he'd\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebeen working on before laying the album down, utilizing the morning pages technique of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003estream-of-consciousness, observational songwriting which flowed directly into his afternoon\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003erecording sessions. It was both a breathtaking document of Johnson's skill as a singer-\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esongwriter and an unvarnished account of the two weeks in which he recorded the album.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eBaby Man's closeness to Johnson's heart and the close attention to his voice and instrument it's\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eminimalist-maximalist ethos required uncorked something in him as he wrote towards a new\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efull band effort. \"That session was over,\" he explains, \"but there was way more to explore. I\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eliked the immediacy of it, and I wanted to see how that would translate into a full-band Fruit\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eBats record.\" Within weeks, he was back in a studio, this time with his band - David Dawda\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(bass), Josh Mease (guitars, synth), Frank LoCrasto (piano, synth), and Kosta Galanopoulos\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(drums) - with whom Johnson has spent over a decade building Fruit Bats into one of the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emost in-demand live acts in indie rock. Listening to The Landfill, it's not hard to understand why:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esimply put, this band smokes.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eProducing the initial recording sessions in Washington's Bear Creek Studios, Johnson set out\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eto capture \"the sound of this band I constantly marvel at, the feeling of being in a room with\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emusicians you love and trust enough to let them cook.\" They laid most of it down on the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efloor - no click tracks, no comped vocals, and minimal overdubs, with frequent collaborator\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eThom Monahan returning to provide additional production and The Landfill's final mix. \"It's\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehow we do things with my other band, Bonny Light Horseman, and I was curious to see how\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eit would work with Fruit Bats,\" Johnson notes. \"It's both a very personal record, and my most\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecollaborative to date.\"\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eIt's also the most live a Fruit Bats record has been since 2009's The Ruminant Band, and in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eparing back the number of tracks that typically layer a full-band song, the psychedelic,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etechnicolor dreaminess of their sound is more vivid than ever. Time and space melt into the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esublime as the band gels around Johnson's hazy croon on \"That Goddamn Sun,\" stretching out\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eto accommodate him as he trips from California to North Carolina. In striking a balance\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebetween ecstatic romance and melancholia, \"Think Aboutcha\" occupies the blissful-but-\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003edoomed intersection of the E Street Band and Paul McCartney, playful but playing for stakes\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ethat are larger than life, while \"Perhaps We're a Storm\" charges headlong into the unknown.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eAll of these songs - most of the songs on The Landfill, in fact - mark themselves\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eimmediately as some of the best in Eric D. Johnson's ever-expanding songbook, seekers and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eanthems alike. It's the most daunting peak he's scaled yet, musically or lyrically: a\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eswashbuckling set of full-band jammers couldn't be more honest and open-hearted about his\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehopes and anxieties, his dreams and fa\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"aec-musictabs\" class=\"ui-tabs ui-corner-all ui-widget ui-widget-content\"\u003e\n\u003cul role=\"tablist\" class=\"ui-tabs-nav ui-corner-all ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header\"\u003e\n\u003cli role=\"tab\" class=\"ui-tabs-tab ui-corner-top ui-state-default ui-tab ui-tabs-active ui-state-active\" aria-controls=\"mt-1\" aria-labelledby=\"MusicTracks\" aria-selected=\"true\" aria-expanded=\"true\" style=\"font-weight: bold;\" tabindex=\"0\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTracks:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"mt-1\" aria-labelledby=\"MusicTracks\" role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"ui-tabs-panel ui-corner-bottom ui-widget-content\" aria-hidden=\"false\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"aec-jukebox\" class=\"tracksonly\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"jp-playlist tracksonly\"\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e1\u003c\/span\u003e The Saddest Part of the Song\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e2\u003c\/span\u003e All Wounds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e3\u003c\/span\u003e Think Aboutcha\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e4\u003c\/span\u003e That Goddamn Sun\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e5\u003c\/span\u003e Silverfish in the Sink\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e6\u003c\/span\u003e Wild Pony Tower Moment\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e7\u003c\/span\u003e Fishin' for a Vision\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e8\u003c\/span\u003e Perhaps We're a Storm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e9\u003c\/span\u003e Hummingbird Sage\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"aec-tracknum\"\u003e10\u003c\/span\u003e The Landfill\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFormat: CD\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGenre: Rock\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReleased: 2026-06-12\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Fruit Bats","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43572604174395,"sku":"EVP-673855088723","price":12.46,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0375\/2873\/1707\/files\/fruit-bats-the-landfill_6dRoo.jpg?v=1780609845","url":"https:\/\/record-stop.com\/products\/fruit-bats-the-landfill-cd","provider":"Record Stop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}