THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With his longtime drummer and percussionist Tommy Larkins and former Modern Lovers bandmate Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) on keyboards, balladeer Jonathan Richman returns with his 18th studio album Only Frozen Sky Anyway, following in his longtime tradition of injecting his lyrical wit into indie rock in a fashion that he has perfected over decades.
Kicking off with the rhythmic I Was Just A Piece Of Frozen Sky Anyway, the album finds Richman in his prime, traipsing through acoustic styles effortlessly from track to track. Lifting the melody and chorus from The Bee Gees’ hit single, Richman creates a nostalgic narrative in Night Fever, where he takes on a voyeuristic look on typical a Saturday night in Europe. The infectiously propulsive The Older Girl sees Richman warning a younger fellow to avoid dating up (“She was a whole year older / And I looked a lot younger / I was too young to know how important those two things were”).
The Spanish-inflected Se Va Pa’volver captures the thematic thread of departures and returns that permeates the album. “Like many of the songs on this new record, which either existed in a vague, skeletal form or did not at all before we started recording on Jan. 5 of ’25 (and finished by Jan. 10), this song fits in with the theme that seems to have taken shape during that recording session,” Richman says. “The song is about how our friends are leaving, in their dying, on an errand, only to return in another role… with another mission. How do I dare say such a thing? Oh… I don’t know.”
In addition to this album of all-new material, Richman is issuing his last three albums Ishkode! Ishkode! (2016), SA! (2018) and Want To Visit My Inner House? (2021) as well as the EPs Cold Pizza & Other Hot Stuff (2022) and Yatasamaroun (2023) to streaming services for the first time ever. Previously only available via Bandcamp or for purchase at shows, the rollout of these releases finally makes them accessible to a much larger audience. Of these albums, Richman says, “Jerry Harrison, Nicole Montalbano and I produced (Want To Visit My Inner House?) as well as SA! (2018). To us, the two albums are related in the sense that Want to Visit My Inner House? suggests where SA was starting to head.”
