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Nov 08, 2019 By Christopher Roberts The Homesick

Dutch trio The Homesick have announced a new album, The Big Exercise, and shared a new song from it, “I Celebrate My Fantasy.” The Big Exercise is due out February 7, 2020 via Sub Pop, the band’s first for the Seattle label. Listen to “I Celebrate My Fantasy” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art. Also below are the band’s upcoming tour dates.

The band’s lineup is Jaap van der Velde, Erik Woudwijk, and Elias Elgersma. The Big Exercise is the band’s second album, the follow-up to 2017’s debut, Youth Hunt. The album’s title is inspired by a passage in the Scott Walker-biography Deep Shade of Blue.

In a press release Van der Velde had this to say about some of the musical influences on the album: “When we were on tour in 2018, I bought Meredith Monk’s Dolmen Music in Switzerland. Elias and I have been completely immersed in her music ever since. But also the work of Joan La Barbara for example, who also did things with extended vocal techniques, that was also quite vital to us. We discovered that the human voice offers so many beautiful elements that can still feel very physical and intrusive.”

Summing up the album, Van der Velde says: “That’s also a phenomenal aspect of the position we’re now in as a band. I consider The Homesick a pop band first and foremost. If you’d introduce a late-era Scott Walker-record to a layman, it would likely fall on flat ears. But put it in the right scene of a good movie, and that person may finally understand its potential. The Homesick is allowed to play around in that pop framework, and the goal is to explore what’s possible within it. You can do super radical and weird things, and at the same time convey it all as straightforward pop music. With this album, I hope people will hear things anew after multiple listens.”

The Big Exercise Tracklist:

1. What’s In Store
2. Children’s Day
3. Pawing
4. I Celebrate My Fantasy
5. Leap Year
6. The Small Exercise
7. The Big Exercise
8. Focus On The Beach
9. Kaïn
10. Male Bonding

The Homesick Tour Dates:

2019:

Nov. 09 - Taiwan, TW - LUC Fest
Nov. 22 - Leeuwarden, NL - Explore the North Festival
Nov. 23 - Dusseldorf, DE - Weltkunstzimmer
Dec. 04 - Trier, DE - VillaWuller

2020:

Feb. 21 - Groningen, NL - Vera
Feb. 28 - Nijmegen, NL - Merleyn
Mar. 05 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso
Mar. 06 - Rotterdam, NL - WORM
Mar. 07 - Utrecht, NL - EKKO

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