Bunny – out October 12th

With fourteen tracks and appearances from Canadian indie duo Tegan and Sara, Bunny will be Dear’s first solo release since 2012’s Beams. In a press release, Dear addressed his doubters and made clear that the free time was not spent idly. “Some bands have retired and come back in the amount of time since my last album. Hell, I’ve even played a part in making two more humans since Beams. But hey old man, why aren’t I rested? Why’s your boy so damn tired? Where’s the music? Did I finally succumb to the burn out you always warned me of?”, Dear asked rhetorically.

“Throughout it all, as has been the case since I was 14, I made loads of weirdo music. If it weren’t digital, there’d be boxes of tapes and tapes and tapes. See, that’s the thing. I’m a tinkerer”, he explained. Indeed, for Dear music creation is an everyday process, and not confined to the walls of the studio. “That’s where you’ll find the music dad. It’s in my head. It’s on my hard drives. It’s in my car driving the girls to school in the morning… The music is always there. It’s just a matter of time before it starts to bubble over and finally get stamped ‘property of the people'”, he said.

Along with the announcement, the producer released the album’s first two tracks, ‘Bunny’s Dream’ and ‘Echo’. Wildly different in tone but still distinctly Dear, these tracks are promising signs of things to come for the new album. At over seven minutes, ‘Bunny’s Dream’ is a floaty, semi-psychedelic wave of delayed guitar, classic synths and bassy vocal fit for the last days of summer. Combining vintage sounds with a more experimental minimalism, ‘Echo’ sees Dear exploring his roots in the Detroit DJ circuit. Over a looping drum figure, droning keyboard bass and industrial effects, the DJ tells a well-sung tale of a drug-fuelled night on the town. Check out the songs below.