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Oct 08, 2020 Future Islands By Christopher Roberts

Future Islands are releasing a new album, As Long As You Are, tomorrow via 4AD. Last night they were the musical guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in which they did a captivating performance of the album’s “For Sure.” It was their truly amazing 2014 performance of “Seasons (Waiting On You)” on the predecessor show, The Late Show with David Letterman, that went viral and exposed the band to a much bigger audience. Their “For Sure” rendition was a worthy successor. Watch it below.

Also, yesterday Future Islands launched 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). Then they shared the album’s fourth single, “Born in a War,” via an animated video for it.

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. Listen to our Why Not Both podcast interview with Cashion about balancing Future Islands with his ambient music.

Read our 2014 cover story article on Future Islands.

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