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Apr 04, 2018 By Christopher Roberts FAN

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Meric Long, longtime frontman for the duo The Dodos, is releasing Barton’s Den, a new solo album as FAN, his first full-length under that name, on May 4 via Polyvinyl. Previously Long shared the album’s first single and opening track, “Bob1.” Last September “Fire” was one of our Songs of the Week and that song is also featured on the album. Now he has shared another song from the album, “Velour,” via a video directed by Joe Baughman that features lots of roller skating. Watch it below.

Long had this to say about the song and video in a press release: “This song is an ode to one of the best performances I saw in 2017, which was the lip sync performance in the season finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race by the contestant Sasha Velour. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days afterwards, and every time I did I could literally feel this surge of energy well up inside me. I couldn’t believe the amount of energy transferred across television waves. For the video, the director Joseph Baughman really had total free reign so I can’t really cop to know where he was coming from, but I see it as an extension of that same idea, the transference of energy across screens and how we come to have these big emotions about people we watch and never know.”

Following the death of his father and the birth of his first child, Long had decided to put The Dodos and his music career on hold, but couldn’t resist the calling of music. One motivation was the two synthesizers (a Yamaha AX60 and a Realistic Concertmate MG-1) he inherited from his dad that he began playing just for fun, which eventually led to FAN.

“I’ve had a lot of regret about not overcoming the space that existed between us,” said Long about his father, in a previous press release. “I would have liked to get to know him more. I think working with the synths he passed on was a way to continue the conversation.”

The album sessions began in Galicia, Spain, where he spent two weeks alone at his mother-in-law’s cottage in the woods. Then during a blizzard in Portland he spent a week holed up in a basement recording. Finally the album was recorded at night after his daughter had been put to bed, in a soundproofed Oakland garage dubbed Barton’s Den after Long’s middle name, hence the album title.

Long also had this to say about the album: “I have such a specific approach to guitar, and have been doing it for so long that breaking away from that felt like a huge, scary leap.”

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