The Felice Brothers announce new LP (on Conor Oberst’s new label) & tour, share “Crime Scene Queen”
The Felice Brothers have announced a new album, Valley of Abandoned Songs, due out via old friend and collaborator Conor Oberst‘s new label, Million Stars. Its songs are from the sessions that produced 2019’s Undress and 2023’s Asylum On The Hill, and Ian Felice says, “A few years ago, I started revisiting old demos that had never seen the light of day and recordings that hadn’t found a home on previous albums, and I started thinking of them as the Valley of Abandoned Songs. At a certain point, I realized that I had a particular group of tunes that worked really well as an album, and so I shared it with Conor, along with my idea to post it online, but he immediately texted back that he loved it so much he wanted to start a new record label just to put it out.”
“I first encountered the Felice Brothers in 2007 after being given some of their music by a friend,” Conor adds. “I liked it a lot, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on—singular and mysterious. An iconoclastic version of what some lazy people call ‘Americana’. I subsequently met them and played shows together. They became some of my best friends, family, really. I put out two of their records on the label I co-owned at the time, called Team Love. Then we started to perform together with them as my backing band and made a record of mine called Salutations. Needless to say, I love this band, and when asked that horrible question, ‘Who is your favorite band?’ I always answer ‘The Felice Brothers.’ So when Ian sent me this new collection of songs and told me they just planned to put it up on the internet, I kind of flipped out, because they were so goddamn good. And then I did something I swore I would never do again: I started a new record label. This is my third. It is called Million Stars, and I am so proud to say the new Felice Brothers album is our first release. I can’t quit them. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.”
The first single is “Crime Scene Queen,” which you can hear below. Ian says, “The one lyric I had when I started to write this song was ‘through the palms of pleasure island, an ominous wind began to blow.’ The rest of the story was built around that image. Humphrey Bogart’s character in The Big Sleep might also have played some role. It was recorded on the final day of our sessions for Asylum On The Hill.”
The Felice Brothers will be on tour in the US in July, followed by shows in the UK and Europe in October and November. See all dates below.
The NYC show is on July 11 at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 12 at 10 AM, with a Citi Cardmember Presale happening now.
[embedded content]
THE FELICE BROTHERS – VALLEY OF ABANDONED SONGS TRACKLIST
1) Crime Scene Queen
2) Flowers By The Roadside
3) New York By Moonlight
4) Younger As The Days Go By
5) So Long John
6) Black is My True Love’s Hair
7) Raccoon, Rooster And Crow
8) Stranger’s Arms
9) Birdies
10) Tomorrow Is Just A Dream Away
11) Let Me Ride Away With The Horsemen
12) It’s Midnight And The Doves Are In Tears
13) To Be A Papa
THE FELICE BROTHERS: 2024 TOUR DATES
7/10 – State College, PA – The State Theatre
7/11 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
7/12 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
7/13 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
7/14 – Portland, ME – Space
726-28 – Nelsonville, OH – Nelsonville Music Festival
7/27 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
10/29 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
10/30 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall
11/01 – Sligo, Ireland – Sligo Live
11/02 – Dublin, Ireland – Button Factory
11/04 – Glasgow, UK – St Luke’s
11/05 – Birmingham, UK – Hare & Hounds
11/06 – Cardiff, UK – The Globe
11/07 – London, UK – Electric Ballroom
11/09 – Bristol, UK – Strange Brew
11/10 – Brighton, UK – Chalk
11/12 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso Noord
11/13 – Cologne, Germany – Luxor
11/15 – Berlin, Germany – Kulturhaus Peter Edel
11/16 – Weissenhäuser Strand, Germany – Rolling Stone Beach
