THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Well folks, A little bit all over the place, but I worked very hard to get some new songs finished for this one,” says singer-songwriter Ted Leo about his surprise Bandcamp Friday EP Heaven’s Off.
“Coming Back to Bloom, I finished writing and tracking last weekend, and Heaven’s Off I wrote Wednesday night and tracked last night (tonight, as I’m writing this). Because of that, Heaven’s Off is not in its final form. I tracked some tin whistle, but the pitch was off, it was already midnight, etc. I opted to lean into the scrappy on that one.
“They both lean into the Irish a little, actually, which gave me the idea to release a formerly 7″ box set-only B-side, Love’s Too Long (for Pike County), which is not that Irish, but does have a similar twang. And with that song, I had the help of Aimee Mann in writing the bridge, which led me to remember that we’d never really released another song that Aimee helped me write, Gideon Gray. We played this live as The Both, but only ever made it available as a Maximum Fun premium for pledges, when we were doing our podcast. Here it is in all its rough and smooth glory, drummed on and recorded by Scott Seiver of… many things — Pete Yorn, Tenacious D, CUD, etc.
“Finally, we turn back to punk, and I drop another rarity never-released beyond the fabled 7″ box set of B-sides, Anonymous@1:34, a musing on (among other things) what open comments sections did to the brain in the previous decade; and then, the obligatory cover: The Shape of Things to Come, by The Headboys. I’ve been going back to a lot of U.K. ’82 stuff, and this song by what’s otherwise mostly a power pop band, struck me as something I could bend successfully down into the chorus-y gutter, a la late Blitz. I hope it satisfies!”
