The Arcs Release Electrophonic Chronic, A Crate-Digging Deep Dive Honoring Late Bandmate Richard Swift 

Record Release Parties Planned In New York And Los Angeles Featuring DJ Sets From Dan Auerbach And Leon Michels

The Arcs just released their first full length album since 2015, Electrophonic Chronic, featuring the band’s full line-up of Dan Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon and Homer Steinweiss alongside the late Richard Swift. Also featuring artwork from their collaborator El Oms and animated videos from Robert "Roboshobo" Schober, the album has been met with advance praise from NPR Music, Pitchfork, Billboard, Rolling Stone, and Vulture, who says: "[The Arcs' music] has taken on layers of new meaning...the level of talent they were able to bring together [for 'Electrophonic Chronic'] still feels improbable."

Listen to Electrophonic Chronic HERE

Co-produced by Michels and Auerbach, Electrophonic Chronic was largely recorded with Swift before his untimely passing in 2018. After a period where, as Michels puts it, "I think all of us couldn’t really listen to the music, couldn’t really face it and try to finish it," The Arcs revisited their old recordings, picking up the pieces and finding meaning in times that felt most difficult. “This new record is all about honoring Swift," Auerbach adds. "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 recently premiered the final video in a series of animated tributes to Swift with the advance single, “Sunshine.” Balancing vignettes of feeling down on your luck with the chorus' unwavering plea for better days ahead, the new video from Roboshobo is a poignant homage to Swift, and to hope through the darkest days. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrGYD9wnjJI

Born of the band's mutual obsession with recording and crate-digging, Electrophonic Chronic pulls inspiration from vast sonic archives: vintage soul (featured on the album is a gender-flipped cover of the would-be South Florida star Helene Smith's "A Woman Will Do Wrong"), to old school garage rock (including the album’s namesake "Electrophonic Tonic," the once-lost gem from Fred "Sonic" Smith and Sonic's Rendezvous Band), and the space age pop made famous by producer Joe Meek in the pre-Beatles 1960s. The record is a tribute to the shared passion that originally brought the three bandmates together. 

Alongside Esquire in LA the other month, Auerbach rifled through rare records and dove deeper into what The Arcs were listening to while they made their new LP, Easy Eye’s work in reviving archival sounds, and the creative process behind Electrophonic Chronic, the record that Esquire deems "a woozy mix of synth pop, celestial guitar riffs and...rhythm sections that feels like driving a Ford Bronco through the cosmos.”

Auerbach and Michels have also been spinning selects from those sonic archives in a series of intimate DJ sets across London and Paris, plus upcoming shows in New York and Los Angeles this week. Check out the dates below and read more about the announcement over at Rolling Stone.

The pair also recently sat down with Vulture for a dive further into the multifaceted inspirations of Electrophonic Chronic, in a piece that breaks down newly-released “Only One For Me”, co-written by two indie rock greats gone-too-soon in David Berman and Richard Swift, alongside Auerbach and Michels.