Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti have announced that their new album will be released through 4AD on August 20th. The follow-up to 2010’s surprise hit Before Today, it’s set to be titled Mature Themes.
Its first single, ‘Baby’, is a cover of Donnie and Joe Emerson’s track of the same name and features guest vocals from Dâm-Funk. It’s rather good, in a soft-spoken slow-jam kind of way – and interestingly, is the second time this year this song’s been covered on a major album: Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland’s Black Is Beautiful found them singing a chemically hazed take on the original. You can stream it at the 4AD site here. It will be released on July 9th as a limited, one sided 12".
"Sonically, it’s comparable," Pink said of his new album’s relation to Before Today in a recent interview with SPIN. "There are definitely not any links to my lo-fi origins. It’s so diverse but so different from anything I’ve done before. In a sense, it’s really the record I wanted to make back when I made Before Today, but couldn’t due to pressures and different factors. We had time to let our hair down and try new things."
