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Mar 31, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Alt-rock veterans Dinosaur Jr. are releasing a new album, Sweep It Into Space, on April 23 via Jagjaguwar. Now they have shared its second single, “Garden,” via a video for it that features the band performing outside in the snow, with some animation overlaid. They have also announced a livestream concert for May 1st. “Garden” features lead vocals from the band’s Lou Barlow, who directed the video with his wife Adelle Barlow. The video also features illustrations by John Moloney and animation by Chloe Hemingway. Watch it below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates (yes the band actually has tour dates).

Lou Barlow had this to say about the song and video in a press release: “Everyone seemed to want a disruption in the order of American life, it seemed necessary. Then it happened. It began as a bitter lamentation but as I was finishing the lyrics, singing over the instrumental version of the song while driving to J’s through the miles of farmland that separate his studio in Amherst and my home in Greenfield (Massachusetts), I saw a sign on a shed: Back to the Garden. I was looking for a resolution, where do we go when faced with such dramatic confusion? Back to basics, back home, back to the garden. Luckily I was able to complete the vocals and instrumentation for the song just before the quarantine.

“There wasn’t a video planned for the song but since my wife Adelle and I had started making holiday ‘specials’ for my YouTube channel this past December, we thought we could knock one out for ‘Garden.’ I wanted to capture the two of us holding hands on a levy overlooking a scenic bend in the Connecticut River (very close to where the first Dinosaur video, Little Fury Things, was filmed!). Adelle thought we should incorporate the whimsical paintings of Dinosaur Jr’s tour manager John Moloney. He routinely dashes off caricatures of J, Murph and I when we travel. I told John about our ideas and he thought it would be easy to video the band playing the song. So, John and Adelle quickly captured the band playing the song on their iPhones on a cold February afternoon and I edited it all together in iMovie. Then we had Chloe, the real vid expert at Jagjaguwar, put the paintings by John and Adelle into the mix, and that’s it!
Thanks for watching.”

The livestream concert will come from the Sinclair in Boston, MA on May 1st at 9 p.m. EST. Tickets are available here and are $15 (or $40 for a more deluxe experience, including a soundcheck and a Q&A with the band).

Previously the band shared the album’s first single, “I Ran Away,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Kurt Vile co-produced the album and plays guitar on “I Ran Away.”

Sweep It Into Space is the band’s twelfth studio album and the follow-up to 2016’s Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not and 2012’s I Bet on Sky.

The album was recorded at the Biquiteen studios in Amherst, Massachusetts, starting in late 2019. The pandemic interrupted recording with Vile and so the band’s J Mascis says in a press release that he “ended up just mimicking a few things [Vile had] done.”

“I was listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy, so I was trying to get some of that dueling twin lead sound,” Mascis continues. “But the recording session was pretty well finished by the time things really hit the fan. When the lockdown happened in March, that meant I was on my own. But it was cool.”

Longtime band member Lou Barlow also wrote and sang two songs on the album. The band also features drummer Murph (birth name Emmett Jefferson Murphy III).

Read our 2014 joint interview between Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus.

Vile’s last album, Bottle It In, came out in 2018 via Matador.

Dinosaur Jr. Tour Dates:

Sat. May 22 - Swanzey, NH @ Cheshire Fairgrounds - SOCIALLY DISTANCED
Sun. May 23 - New Haven @ CT Westville Music Bowl - SOCIALLY DISTANCED
Tue. July 27 - Fri. July 30 - Big Indian, NY @ Camp Fuzz
Tue. Sept. 7 - Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre
Thu. Sept. 9 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
Fri. Sept. 10 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Venue TBA
Sat. Sept. 11 - Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
Mon. Sept. 13 - Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
Tue. Sept. 14 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
Thu. Sept. 16 - St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
Mon. Sept. 20 - Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
Tue. Sept. 21 - Kansas City, MO @ Truman
Thu. Sept. 23 - Austin, TX @ Moody Theater @ ACL Live
Fri. Sept. 24 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
Sat. Sept. 25 - Dallas, TX @ Canton Hall
Mon. Sept. 27 - Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
Tue. Sept. 28 - Bloomington, IN @ The Bluebird
Thu. Sept. 30 - Columbus, OH @ Athenaeum Theatre
Fri. Oct. 1 - Cleveland, OH @ Agora
Sat. Oct. 2 - Ithaca, NY @ State Theatre
Fri. Nov. 12 - Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
Sat. Nov. 13 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
Mon. Nov. 15 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Tue. Nov. 16 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Thu. Nov. 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
Fri. Nov. 19 - New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall
Sat. Nov. 20 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
Fri. Nov. 26 - Northampton, MA @ Academy of Music
Sat. Nov. 27 - Boston, MA @ House Of Blues
Thu. Feb. 3 - Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy’s and Harriets
Fri. Feb. 4 - Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
Sat. Feb. 5 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
Mon. Feb. 7 - Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory Music Hall
Tue. Feb. 8 - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
Thu. Feb. 10 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox at Market
Fri. Feb. 11 - Portland, OR @ Venue TBA
Sat. Feb. 12 - Portland, OR @ Venue TBA
Tue. Feb. 15 - Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
Wed. Feb. 16 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Thu. Feb. 17 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Sat. Feb. 19 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
Sun. Feb. 20 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda
Tue. Feb. 22 - San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park
Wed. Feb. 23 - Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
Fri. Feb. 25 - Albuquerque, NM @ El Rey Theatre
Sat. Feb. 26 - Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre

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