The Universe And Me

Description

How do you bring a child s curiosity to life? For Tobin Sprout, formerly of indie rock icons Guided by Voices, the answer is to revisit it with the wounded tenor of an aging piano man; someone searching, desperately, for his place in the cosmos. The Universe and Me is Sprout s sixth solo album; hatched during a seven-year gestation period that included unearthing lost recordings (the single, Future Boy Today/Man of Tomorrow for one, was being saved for GBV), and digging through a treasure chest of memories in his home studio in Michigan, where Sprout composed behind his shambling grand piano and trembling, boyish voice. Each home recording was captured live with Sprout s new band which led to marvelous imperfections. The Universe and Me takes a deliberately primitive approach that focuses on feeling, as opposed to production. The result is a vague bridge between the ballads of psych-era Beatles, and the haunting vulnerability of Daniel Johnston s Hi, How Are You?. It s no surprise, then, that Sprout penned and illustrated his own magical children s books as The Universe and Me plays like a deceptively dense reimagining of simple subjects like comic books, finding your purpose in life, and growing old. Many of the 14 tracks acts like a diorama of a boy s imagination, like Future Boy/Man of Tomorrow, which was inspired by Sprouts fascination with superheroes from his youth. The wistful When I Was A Boy is a short, stunning ballad relating childhood grounding to adulthood. Walk Across the Human Bridge is a heavy-hitting rocker driven by shredding and lyrics describing the decline of humanity. Tomorrow From Heaven is about dealing with the sadness that follows death. Pasted together as a collage, as opposed to a rigid whole, and we have the soundtrack to Tobin Sprout s life. The Universe and Me will be available on Burger Records on January 20, with a limited pressing of a baby blue vinyl for the first 300 copies. Following the release, Sprout and his new band will embark on a nationwide tour. This will be his first tour in over a decade, supported by Burger Records, who ll be reissuing Sprout s mid-90s Matador albums Carnival Boy and Moonflower Plastic in the months ahead.