Big beat pioneer The Crystal Method has released “Holy Arp,” the first single from their upcoming album The Trip Home, which is set to be released on September 28. This upcoming album will be the Crystal Method’s latest release since 2014’s self-titled album.
The Trip Home is the electronic music project’s first studio album release since Ken Jordan retired from music in 2017, effectively turning The Crystal Method into a solo-project led by Scott Kirkland. As such “Holy Arp,” is also the first piece of music to be released solely under the moniker without Jordan.
“Holy Arp,” also got a radio premier on Sirius XM Radio Channel 52 as part of Back to Back Radio with Willy Joy on July 25. Kirkland also released a short snippet of the song on Twitter the same day, prior to its satellite radio broadcast.
According to a press release the album title “refers to [Kirkland’s] long journey: all the places where [he’s] been able to go, and the experiences that come with that.”
“It’s the journey back to all the things that got me here-the touring, the music, the fans that keep me here. But there’s always home,”Kirkland explains. “At the end of it, I go home to my family, I go home my studio, and then I go back out. It’s a circle. I have tried to capture all this in an album.”
While he may have taken a small break from releasing new music since becoming a solo act, he has been actively touring. In 2017, Kirkland joined progressive metal band Tool on tour, playing shows at venues like the Glen Helen Amphitheater, in San Bernardino, California under the Crystal Method name.
Kirkland has a longer history with the band, in 2016 he teamed up with Tool’s bassist Justin Chancellor to create new project called Bandwidth. The duo released a remix of Foals’ “What Went Down,” back in 2016, yet the two have not released any further projects under the Bandwidth title since then.
In September of 2017, Kirkland teamed up with Tobias Enhus to release the soundtrack for the documentary Hired Gun: Out of the Shadows, Into the Spotlight. The soundtrack was released under The Crystal Method name and had a feature from the aforementioned Chancellor on the track”We Miss Cliff.”
The Trip Home has been in the works for over a year, with Kirkland first revealing that he was working on the project back in 2017 in an interview with BeatRoute.
“This new record is [going to be] mostly ‘out of the box,’ meaning I’ll be mostly using the analogue synths that a lot of software programs are emulating,” Kirkland stated regarding the album. “I have all these sexy synthesizers in the back and all they need to do is to be plugged in and turned on, and for some reason I’m chasing some sort of sound inside of a box that also does my emails and catalogues pictures of my kids. I really just wanna work quicker and not over think things, I can over process things on my own.”
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