Califone, the long-running project of Tim Rutili, has announced their new album villagers is set for release May 19 via Jealous Butcher Records. For the group’s first record since 2020’s Echo Mine, Rutili dials into the sweet spot where awe and bliss commingle even as things are falling apart; the effect of which is akin to sitting on a porch swing looking out at a sunset that radiates a slow, mystic entropy fraying everything at the edges. Recorded in four cities and bolstered by a pool of collaborators that includes longtime cohorts Brian Deck, Michael Krassner, Rachel Blumberg, and Ben Massarella, the record’s nine compositions smoothly bounce between taut grooves and rough-sketched studio exploration, seamlessly blending elements of classic AM gold, electronic experimentation, Laurel Canyon harmonies, and musique concrete into a horizonless sonic geography. This boundlessness is ever-present in “the habsburg jaw,” which arrives today to preview the album, paired with a disarmingly hallucinatory video directed by Rutili himself – check it out below.
VILLAGERS TRACK LIST
1. the habsburg jaw
2. eyelash
3. mcmansions
4. villagers
5. comedy
6. ox-eye
7. halloween
8. skunkish
9. sweetly
