Woods

Woods share the new double single, “Little Black Flowers” b/w “Day Moving On,” from their forthcoming album, Perennial, out September 15th on the band’s own Woodsist label, and expand their North American tour. This summer, Woods have teased Perennial through a steady stream of double singles, and today’s entry continues revealing the band’s shimmering soundscape. From source to seed to bloom, each loop unfolds into something unpredictable, from the jeweled pop of the aching “Little Black Flowers” to the elliptical grooves of “Day Moving On.” With each Perennial preview, Woods showcase the sound of a band on the edge of their 20th anniversary and still finding bold new ways to sound like (and challenge) themselves.

This fall, Woods will embark on a headline tour in support of Perennial, beginning with a performance at their own Woodsist Festival at Arrowood Farm in Accord, New York. As in previous years, Woods’ Jeremy Earl curated the eclectic lineup, tapping into his striking family of collaborators (and Woods alum) that have made the band one of the most dependable outfits in the kaleidoscopic low-key underground. The festival will also feature Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Avery Tare, Cass McCombs, Bombino, Natural Information Society, Scientist, MJ Lenderman, Water from Your Eyes, Alabaster DePlume, Taper’s Choice, Daniel Higgs, Tyvek, Anna St Louis, Aquarium Drunkard DJs, and Tubby’s DJs. The following week, Woods will continue their tour through the Northeast, before embarking on a West Coast leg in November. A full list of dates is below.

Perennial grew from a bed of guitar, keyboard, and drum loops by Jeremy Earl, a form of winter night meditation that evolved into an unexplored mode of collaborative songwriting. With Earl’s starting points, he and bandmates Jarvis Taveniere and John Andrews convened, first at Earl’s house in New York, then at Panoramic House studio in Stinson Beach, California, site of sessions for 2020’s Strange To Explain. With a view of the sparkling Pacific and tape rolling, they began to build, jamming over the loops, switching instruments, and developing a few dozen building blocks.

Woods have long used the studio as a place of songwriting, naming 2007’s At Rear House after their shared dwelling and recording space. But Perennial also carries with it an even longer view of Woods. Emerging from the process alongside the music was Earl’s reflection that “perennial plants and flowers are nature’s loops,” an idea rolling under the album’s lyrics like the loops themselves. It certainly applies to the band, too, who have quietly tended to a long, committed project of being a band in the weird-ass 21st century, both individually and communally. Though separated by coasts, the communicable spirit carries through Earl, Taveniere, and Andrews’ collaboration, a living embodiment of the freedoms rediscovered every time a new collectively created piece of music emerges.

Formed in 2004, Woods have matured into a true independent institution, above and below the root, reliably emerging every few years with new music that grows towards the latest sky. Perennial carries all of this, shaped by decades, but made in the moment, and here right now. The smell of the flowers doesn’t remain, but sometimes the flowers do.