Past Life

Lost In The Trees will release their new album Past Life. It is the follow up to the group's widely praised record A Church That That Fits Our Needs which was hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "the best album of 2012."

When Lost In The Trees set out to record Past Life, their third album for ANTI-, they knew they needed a break with the past. Frontman Ari Picker looked to move beyond the themes of loss that fueled their previous two albums. "I wanted to reach out and grab the music rather than have it come from some internal place." On past releases Picker had used an expanded six-member band to render his carefully composed, classical-inflected songs, bringing them fully arranged to the studio for the band to perform. For the new album, the band was pared to a lean electronic-rock four-piece, and in this new configuration Lost In the Trees took to the road to workshop the songs that would become Past Life. Immediately, the new tracks evidence more than a band pared down; the arrangements are modern, spare, minimal, emphasizing groove and rhythm.

The band has also elected to work with an outside producer for the first time. Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Atlas Sound) endorsed and refined the band's new minimal aesthetic. The question in the studio became, "How much can we strip away?" With an approach that forefronts beats and bass-lines, Vernhes and the band lifted away the orchestral density of previous albums - leaving a more direct framework of soul-inflected guitar lines, throbbing groove, and Picker's soaring.