Chris Bathgate today premiered a full stream of his new album Dizzy Seas via Noisey, ahead of its May 19th release on Quite Scientific. Noisey calls it "an eclectic collection of ambient folk rock like that of Sufjan Stevens or Justin Vernon," listen here: LINK. Bathgate also plays an album release show at Grand Rapids' Founders Tap Room on Thursday, May 18th.
In a rave review, No Depression called Dizzy Seas a "top notch three-in-the-morning album - the one you reach for when you come home exhausted and need that transition from active to sleep... this one is a beauty." Bathgate previously released two tracks from the album, including a self-directed video for "Northern Country Trail" (via NPR Music), and the single "Low Hey" featuring Tunde Olaniran (via Stereogum)
The follow-up to last year's Old Factory EP, which arrived after a period of self-reflection, during which he hiked extensively and otherwise left the music world behind (Outside looked into how nature influences him), Dizzy Seas is as much an artistic turning point as it is the product of years of exploration, travel, searching, and daydreaming. Urgent, bold, and sonically rich -- with nods to his last full-length, Salt Year, which was hailed as one of the best albums of 2011 by Paste, All Music and more -- Dizzy Seas could well go down as Bathgate's best album to date.
Dizzy Seas is Bathgate's fourth full-length album; a brilliant collection of recordings that collage together to make a whole, not in a seamless way, but almost like a photo album that has been edited to force you, the listener, to put yourself into the story, to add to that narrative. The music itself is borne of daydreams, and invites you to join in, with the album having left a door unlocked for you to enter by Bathgate's inimitable skill in, as NPR puts it, "the art of distilling alienation into bruised-sounding beauty."
