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Limited Opaque Blue & Opaque Bone Vinyl is for Indies only.

Eric D. Johnson rarely lingers at one location too long. As a kid growing up in the Midwest, Johnsons family moved around a lot, but it wasnt until he became a touring musician years later that motion became a central part of his identity. That transient lifestyle stoked an enduring reverence for the world he watched pass by through a van window. A sense of place is a unifying theme hes revisited with Fruit Bats throughout its many lives. From the projects origins in the late 90s as a vehicle for Johnsons lo-fi tinkering to the more sonically ambitious work of recent years, Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. Its a loose song structure that navigates what he calls the geography of the heart. The songs exist in a world that you can sort of travel from one to another, says Johnson. There are roads and rivers between these songs. Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running to Your Heart. Self-produced by Johnsona first for Fruit Batswith Jeremy Harris at Panoramic House just north of San Francisco, its Fruit Bats tenth full-length release and one that finds the project in the middle of a creative resurgence. After two decades of making music, hard-earned emotional maturity has seeped into Johnsons songs, resulting in a more complex sound thats connected with audiences like no other previous version of Fruit Bats. A River Running to Your Heart represents the fullest realization of that creative vision to date. Its a sonically diverse effort that largely explores the importance of what it means to be home, both physically and spiritually. And while that might seem like a peculiar focus for an artist whos constantly in motion, for Fruit Bats, home can take many formsfrom the obvious to the obscure. Lead single Rushin River Valley is a self-propelled love song written about Johnsons wife that clings to the borrowed imagery of the place where she grew up in northern California. Then, theres the gentle and unfussy acoustic ballad We Used to Live Here, which looks back to a time of youthful promise and cheap rent. But the wistful It All Comes Back is perhaps the most stunning and surprising track on the album, Johnsons production skills on full display. Built upon intricate layers of synths, keyboards, and guitars, its a pitch-perfect blend of tone and lyricism that taps into our shared apprehensions and hopes for a post-pandemic life. We lost some time / But we can make it back / Lets take it easy on ourselves, okay? sings a world-weary but ultimately reassuring Johnson in the songs opening lines. Its the kind of performance that makes you hope Fruit Bats stays in this one place, at least for a little while longer.