Announce New Album Double Life, Out July 25 on Domino

Release First Single “Hold On To Tonight”

+ Album Release Show At Minneapolis’ First Avenue July 26

Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill

Today, the Minneapolis-based Night Moves announce Double Life, their fourth LP and first in six years, due out July 25 on Domino.

Co-produced with Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, Waxahatchee, David Berman), Double Life is at once the most candid and impressionistic Night Moves album yet, built on personal experiences but written so that you can map your own life onto these songs, too. On Double Life, Night Moves does not retreat from the struggles and complexities of life. They, instead, double down with songs that stare them in the face and turn forward on their own terms.

Today also sees the release of the single “Hold On To Tonight,” a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by death in the family; it’s a snapshot from a boozy night alone, when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you’re holding onto is fading memories. “Hold On To Tonight” arrives with a video by Shawn Brackbill.

Additionally, Night Moves will be playing an album release show in Minneapolis at First Avenue on July 26th, tickets can be found here.

Double Life is a cozy and cool LP built largely from a string of very rough breaks that frontman John Pelant and Night Moves have navigated in recent years. Alongside the ever-vexing question for artists about when they’re supposed to step into the responsibilities of adulthood and maybe away from the lifelong compulsion to create, especially as Pelant started thinking seriously about marriage for the first time in his life. Pelant is the sort of songwriter who starts with the music—inspired of late by Glen Campbell and Bobby Caldwell, Cleaners from Venus and early ’90s country, and (as ever) Gram Parsons—and then writes lyrics only after he’s sat with the tune a spell. But this time, these songs are direct documents of Pelant’s life as he searches for silver linings or at least valuable meanings during a moment when very little seemed golden. Double Life is about moving through, not moving on.

Pelant started writing Double Life in the Minneapolis duplex he shares with his fiancée, Tasha. But those early and sometimes-forlorn drafts rightfully bummed her out, especially since some of it spoke of her own woes. So Pelant started treating Night Moves’ little rehearsal room—stuck in a grim industrial zone of the city, surrounded by garbage dumps and foundry fumes—as an office, showing up with workmanlike diligence to keep crafting demos.

That proved to be a tough hang, too: Separated by paper-thin walls, Pelant soon figured out his drug-addled neighbor not only lived there but would also erupt into near-daily shouting matches with his partner. He’d spill Big Gulp cups of piss in their shared hallway. It was worrying, but Pelant kept at it anyway. He’d drive around, delivering hard liquor and wine at his new day job, where Def Leppard’s “Photograph” seemed to play always, the hit hammering through his hangovers. He pondered cycles of addiction and thought a lot about death, apt since that gig was next to another warehouse that sold funeral supplies. He listened to works in progress as he jockeyed the booze, working until he and the band felt they had the core of a record ready.

Again, not as easy as it sounds: Night Moves cycled through two producers who had first sounded like dream collaborators but just didn’t fit their vibe. Once again, Night Moves opted to return to their own practice space, recording the bulk of the album there after capturing basic tracks at Minnesota’s legendary Pachyderm Studios. The decision afforded the band, for the first time, the challenge and luxury of producing themselves, of making every decision about tone and arrangement and timing before passing the songs to Woods sonic mastermind Jarvis Taveniere for mixing and co-production.

Double Life Artwork

1. Trying To Steal A Smile
2. Daytona
3. Hold On To Tonight
4. Almost Perfect
5. State Sponsored Psychosis
6. Ring My Bell
7. The Judge
8. White Liquor
9. The Abduction
10. This Time Tomorrow
11. Desperation