Sun Kil Moon streaming new LP, interviewed by Conor Oberst
The constantly-busy Mark Kozelek releases his next Sun Kil Moon album, Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood, this Friday (2/17) via his own Caldo Verde Records. It's a double album, and he recorded it with Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley (who he's worked with several times before). You can stream the whole thing at SKM's website and check out the tracklist below.
Mark Kozelek was also just interviewed by Conor Oberst (whose great 2016 solo album had a similarly wordy take on folk music to Sun Kil Moon's recent output). Here's an excerpt where they talk about Donald Trump:
Conor: I was wondering if the track ‘Lone Star’ was written before Trump’s victory? If so, damn, you had your finger on the pulse! Nate Silver eat your heart out! I agree with everything you are singing about in that song but I’m wondering going forward what your strategy is for surviving the Trump era? Both personally and as a society.
Mark: Yeah the whole album was finished a few months before the election. I had slight doubts about him winning, late in the game, thanks to my well off white friends who think they know everything because they went to college and worship facebook. But the thing about me, and my guess, about you—is that we travel from state to state and get a sense of reality between coasts. I saw some things in Ohio last year that my West Coast friends would be convulsing over. Trump signs in every yard, for starters. I don’t know what I’m going to do, because as far as I can tell, we’re living in the same fucked up country that existed since I was born in 1967. My earliest TV memories are of Vietnam and Watergate, Bush was in charge during ‘Shock and Awe’, the other Bush was in charge during 9/11, and Obama has been in charge during the highest recorded mass shootings as well as the highest prison populations ever in USA history. I guess my plan is to keep writing songs, be productive and try to bring as much positivity into this world as I can.
Read the rest of the interview here.
Conor Oberst is also releasing a new album and touring this year.
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Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood Tracklist
Disc 1
1. God Bless Ohio
2. Chili Lemon Peanuts
3. Philadelphia Cop
4. The Highway Song
5. Lone Star
6. Window Sash Weights
7. Sarah Lawrence College Song
8. Butch Lullaby
Disc 2
1. Stranger Than Paradise
2. Early June Blues
3. Bergen To Trondheim
4. I Love Portugal
5. Bastille Day
6. Vague Rock Song
7. Seventies TV Show Theme Song
8. I Love You Forever And Beyond Eternity