In a series of tweets that has created just as many questions as it has answered, Echo Park Records boss Alexis Rivera has given an update on the status of the much-delayed Chromatics album, Dear Tommy, which was initially announced in late 2014.
In response to a fan asking why the Dear Tommy-era singles had been removed from streaming services, Rivera began his series of tweets saying: "I think it’s time for an update," before adding that on Christmas day in 2015, the band’s Johnny Jewel almost died in Hawaii. "I don’t want to go into details, but I’m sure he’ll discuss it in interviews at some point," Rivera says.
"When [Johnny] came back home to California he destroyed all copies of [Dear] Tommy. 15K CDs & 10K vinyl in the Italians warehouse in Glendale, all gone. When we announced Twin Peaks in March, you can see some of those broken [Dear] Tommy records," Rivera adds, speaking about the trailer which depicted a smashed photo of Twin Peaks‘ Laura Palmer lying amongst a number of broken vinyl copies of the record.
Rivera says that Jewel then set about working on other music, adding that a similar situation happened with Kill For Love in 2011 where Jewel once again destroyed the record and then began working on it again soon after. Jewel also began pursuing other projects including his involvement in Twin Peaks and producing for other bands after almost dying in 2015, and now Dear Tommy is apparently close to seeing a release having been reworked heavily by Jewel.
"Dear Tommy has the same titles, same lyrics, same track order, as when it was announced Dec of 2014," concludes Rivera’s series of tweets. "Nothing’s changed except it’s better."
You can read the stream of tweets for yourself here and find out more about Chromatics’ involvement in the upcoming reboot of Twin Peaks here.
