NYC band +/- (Plus/Minus) are gearing up to release Further Afield, their first album in a decade, and here’s its second single. “Gondolier” is a nearly seven minute piece of expansive, danceable indie rock, building off an electronic beat box spine, and sailing from there. The song also takes a surprising zag five minutes in (a musical saw is involved).
“I bought this little keyboard and showed my son how to use it one day,” says the band’s James Baluyut of the song’s creation. “The initial passage you hear in the song is something he came up with. I took it from there and expanded it. It seemed like a weird little story: I gave something to my son, he gave something back to me, I expanded that. Maybe he’ll do something similar with his children. As I was writing the lyrics, it made me think about sons becoming fathers and teaching their sons to become fathers in this eternal loop.”
The video for “Gondolier,” directed by the band and Doug Choi, premieres in this post, and you can watch that below.
The band have two upcoming NYC shows: Sunday, April 28 at Baby’s All Right with The Van Pelt and Caithlin De Marrais of Rainer Maria; and a record release show at Union Pool on June 1.
Further Afield is out May 31 via Ernest Jenning Record Co (preorder).