Today, Virginia’s breakout improvisational rock titans Kendall Street Company invite listeners to embark on a journey of extraterrestrial proportions with the release of a heady new single “The Space Race” from their forthcoming double LP project The Year The Earth Stood Still. A colossal 17-track collection, the bilateral release includes an instrumental pop-ambience album Ninurta, which drops Friday, June 11th, and a narrative-driven companion Inertia coming later this fall.
Having catapulted on the scene in recent years with their explosive sound that floats effortlessly between jam, Americana, and indie rock, Kendall Street Company’s latest undertaking further solidifies them as a class-defying phenomenon untethered by any one sonic description. On The Year The Earth Stood Still, the group jolts into fringe territory; encompassing the best of the experimental rock opera canon while still straddling the high voltage fervor that has become entwined with their likeness.
Recorded over five days in a rural farmhouse studio in Louisa, VA, The Year The Earth Stood Still transcends beyond any auditory experience that has preceded it. Determined not to let the specter of the COVID-19 pandemic throw their aspiration off course, KSC embraced the opportunity to explore a new creative frontier. Armed with a bevy of inspiration, and fueled by the paradigm shift unfolding before them, the troupe set sail on their most ambitious odyssey to date – to write, arrange, and record a new album entirely from scratch. Over long-winded sessions that ran late into the night, and despite a raging thunderstorm that only the deities themselves could take credit for, a record was born.
Exploring ancient philosophies, present day circumstances, and the uncertainty of the future, The Year The Earth Stood Still serves as a time capsule of the pandemonium that has enshrouded humanity over the last 14 months. The LP’s first release, Ninurta, is a nod to the Mesopotamian god whose stalwart presence emerges every seven millennia to save humanity from its own avarice. With an eerily similar pattern uncoiling today, the forthcoming album is the band’s manifesto to the people of Earth as they navigate the dark unknown. In this pursuit, Kendall Street Company offers “The Space Race” – a primitive battle cry that imagines a reality in which space exists as the final refuge from earthly doom. Set to John F. Kennedy’s iconic 1962 speech “We Choose to Go to the Moon” and boasting a similar resonance to the likes of Radiohead, Lespecial, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, “The Space Race” casts a celestial shadow over The Year The Earth Stood Still, due in its entirety September 24.
“The Space Race” from Kendall Street Company is available for streaming and purchase through all online platforms today, May 7th, 2021. For more information, visit www.kendallstreetcompany.com.
