Undressed
Undressed is an EP of acoustic versions of four Future Islands favorites from their earlier records.
This has been quite the year for Future Islands. In April the band released the 12” EP In The Fall, (their first release on Thrill Jockey). The 12” featured the summer hit “Tin Man” as well as a song with Katrina Ford of Celebration. Following right on the heels of the 12” was the band’s full length In Evening Air, an album that was critically acclaimed across the board:
“One of my favorite records of the year, hands down.” - Morning Becomes Eclectic host Jason Bentley on In Evening Air
“Future Islands’ sound is as texturally interesting as it is rhythmically accessible - music designed for both heads and feet.” - NPR Song of the Day
“Replacing the dance-pop movement with rich characterization and storytelling, they’ve found themselves at a pleasant distance from most formal genre comparisons. Their music is playful but steeped in subtle detail, with both emotional heft and a pungent sense of theatricality... Drawing from a few different traditions while making them their own, Future Islands prove here to be a well-versed group of wild, woolly storytellers.” - Pitchfork (7.6)
“There is an uncommon thrill in hearing a band discover and deliver a fresh approach, and this is what Future Islands achieves on the nearly perfect In Evening Air.” - PopMatters (8/10)
“The album is a bottom-of-the-heart outpouring of pop music. Harrowing and addictive in equal measure” - BBC Radio One
The band hit the road and toured the US for over two months, bringing their high energy live show to clubs across the country. They did in-store performances at Amoeba in Hollywood, Reckless Records in Chicago and Criminal in Atlanta. They performed and were interviewed on the hugely influential KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic show, they stopped by for a performance at Seattle’s KEXP, and they were featured on Dirty Laundry TV. The band shows no signs of slowing down with a month long European tour on the horizon, and now, Undressed, a brand new limited 12” EP.
The songs for Undressed were recorded quickly in Baltimore’s Mobtown Studios for broadcast on WYPR’s “The Signal” as the band was preparing for their first ever acoustic show at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore. The sessions at Mobtown served as much as a practice as it did a recording, as Future Islands brought in three additional musicians to fill out the unplugged ensemble: Denny Bowen (Double Dagger) on drums, Kate Barutha on cello and Devlin Rice on acoustic guitar. Those performances saw Future Islands strip down rich textures and lush melodies to their core. Samuel Herring’s always-affecting vocals are all the more haunting in this new setting.
Based on the success of that first acoustic performance at Metro Gallery, Future Islands perfumed the acoustic set again at the opening of Baltimore’s Whartscape Festival. They would later close out the festival in their standard configuration with a set that Bmoremusic.net called, “nothing short of legendary.”
