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Oct 06, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Justin Flythe Future Islands

Future Islands are releasing a new album, As Long As You Are, on Friday via 4AD. Now they have shared another new song from it, “Born in a War,” via an animated video for it. The song takes on capitalism and the military industrial complex. American artist Wayne White and his son Woodrow White directed the video. Watch it below.

The band collectively had this to say about the video in a press release: “We first met with Wayne White back in 2014 to discuss collaborating on a music video. We’ve been wanting to work with him since then. We’re stoked that we were finally able to work together on the video for ‘Born in a War.’ We love the puppets he created and his unique interpretation of the song.”

Tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST, Future Islands will also launch a unique way for fans to hear As Long As You Are a couple of days early. Fans can visit www.aslongasyouare.com and once enough fans from any given area in the world are detected as being on the site, an advance stream of the album will begin, with fans being able to chat back and forth with each other about their initial feelings about the album.

As Long As You Are includes “For Sure,” a new song the band shared in July via a video. “For Sure” features backing vocals from Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes and was one of our Songs of the Week. Then when the album was announced they shared another new song from it, “Thrill,” via a video for the song (which was also one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared the album’s third single, “Moonlight,” via a video for it (which also made our Songs of the Week list)

As Long As You Are is the follow-up to 2017’s The Far Field. The band’s core lineup of Samuel T. Herring (vocals), John Gerrit Welmers (keyboards), and William Cashion (bass), has now been officially joined by longtime touring drummer Michael Lowry (who also contributes to the songwriter). The four-piece co-produced the album with engineer Steve Wright, recording it at his Wrightway Studios in Baltimore.

The album will be available digitally, on CD, and on black vinyl, but will also have a petrol blue vinyl (available via 4AD and indie stores only), a fluorescent orange vinyl (available at the band store only), and a cassette version (available via the 4AD store, the band store, and at U.S. indies only).

Future Islands are also having a livestream event on October 9, “A Stream of You and Me,” which is their only live show of 2020 (it’s also their 1,235th live show). It will be filmed in Maryland and features “a bespoke one-off light show created by light artist Pierre Claude” and will be directed by Michael Garber. Tickets are $15 and available here.

Back in June Cashion self-released an ambient solo album under his own name entitled Postcard Music.

Read our 2014 cover story article on Future Islands.

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