Music Matters
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach Announces New Album With The Arcs

Dan Auerbach of The Arcs.
Alysse Gafkjen
/
Courtesy of the artist
Dan Auerbach of The Arcs.

Dan Auerbach spreads himself thin: The singer-guitarist's career has found room for a solo record, prolific production work with the likes of Dr. John, the side project Blakroc and, of course, eight albums as half of The Black Keys. His latest excursion is a band called The Arcs — whose spotlight he shares with Richard Swift, Leon Michels, Homer Steinweiss, Nick Movshon, Kenny Vaughan and the women of Mariachi Flor De Toloache — which is about to release its full-length debut, Yours, Dreamily.

Out Sept. 4, Yours, Dreamily features "Stay In My Corner," a song inspired by Floyd Mayweather's recent bout with Manny Pacquiao. Released earlier this year as a 7", it's got a slinky, timeless feel, propelled with alluring ease by Auerbach's falsetto and a lush instrumental backdrop befitting The Arcs' roster. (Michels, for example, has performed in the El Michels Affair and co-founded Truth & Soul Records, while Swift has performed as a utility player for The Shins and many others, produced records for the likes of Damien Jurado and The Mynabirds, and released half a dozen albums of his own.)

"This project was about making music with some of my longest relationships in music," Auerbach writes in an email. "Leon [Michels], Richard [Swift] and I have not only worked in The Black Keys together, but we have produced together, played on various projects of each other's, and we've collaborated longer than a lot of bands stay together. It just kind of came naturally."

Yours, Dreamily Track Listing

1. Once We Begin (Intro)

2. Outta My Mind

3. Put A Flower In Your Pocket

4. Pistol Made Of Bones

5. Everything You Do (You Do For You)

6. Stay In My Corner

7. Cold Companion

8. The Arc

9. Nature's Child

10. Velvet Ditch

11. Chains Of Love

12. Come & Go

13. Rosie (Ooh La La)

14. Searching The Blue

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)