Dan Auerbach, best known as one half of the power rock duo the Black Keys, is back with his other band, the Arcs. The group announced the January 27 release of Electrophonic Chronic, their first album in eight years since their debut LP, Yours, Dreamily. In the mean time, they have offered fans a single that comes with an animated video created by Robert “Roboshobo” Schober and visual artist El Oms, who also made the album artwork. Check it out below:

The new album will feature the original lineup, namely Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and the late Richard Swift. “This new record is all about honoring Swift,” Auerbach said. “It’s a way for us to say goodbye to him, by revisiting him playing and laughing, singing. It was heavy at times, but I think it was really helpful to do it.”

The Arcs recorded Electrophonic Chronic between Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville (the record will also be released via the label), Electric Lady in Manhattan and Michels’s Diamond Mine in Queens, New York. Auerbach and Michels co-produced the LP, which was largely recorded prior to Swift’s death in 2018. (Pitchfork)

“Whether it was New York City or Nashville or L.A. or Swift’s hometown of Cottage Grove, Oregon, wherever we were, we would always get in the studio together,” Auerbach said about the album. “It was our favorite thing to do. It’s rare that you meet a group of people that you click with like that, who you instantly bond with. We were just having fun, making sounds, making music. It was an amazing time for me.”

Michels added, “There are probably between 80 and 100 tracks that we laid down, because we just constantly recorded after we put out Yours, Dreamily. It was so much fun to be in the studio once again, so we were just making music all the time. I think there was always a plan to make a follow-up record.”

Electrophonic Chronic tracklist:
01 Keep on Dreamin’
02 Eyez
03 Heaven Is a Place
04 Califone Interlude
05 River
06 Sunshine
07 A Man Will Do Wrong
08 Behind the Eyes
09 Backstage Mess
10 Sporting Girls Interlude
11 Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
12 Only One for Me

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat