Animal Collective’s Deakin Announces Solo Album & Shares Single

The long awaited and long in the works debut solo album from from Animal Collective‘s Deakin will be released this Friday, April 8. Featuring six songs, Sleep Cycle initially began as a Kickstarter project in 2009 and includes the single “Just Am,” which was shared today via an official video.

The debut solo record by Josh Dibb (aka Deakin) is currently available to purchase via Bandcamp ahead of its formal release to major outlets and streaming platforms on Friday. Those that backed the project on Kickstarter have already been shipped the record along with any corresponding rewards. According to the announcement, the delay in delivering the album was due to “personal and professional issues.” Here’s a bit more about the new LP via the announcement:

The album originally began as a Kickstarter project in which Josh would travel to Mali to play at the Festival in the Desert and raise money for Temedt, an organization that is working to end slavery in Mali.

Due to personal and professional issues the project has been delayed for years. Most speculated that Deakin used the money that was raised to cover his own travel expenses. This was not the case. The entire trip and all of the subsequent costs to design manufacture and deliver the rewards were self funded except for a small portion that was set aside to help with a portion of shipping and manufacturing costs.

Last week Josh completed and delivered all promised rewards to every backer that supplied the necessary shipping information. The rewards varied based on donation amount but included a cassette version of Sleep Cycle (currently the only planned physical release of this album), digital download of Sleep Cycle, a 50 page full-color art book, two posters, links to a 14 minute video made by Brian DeGraw using footage that Josh shot in Mali, a music video for “Just Am” along with two tracks he recorded of bands he saw at the festival.

The announcement also reveals that while all of the album’s songs were conceived during that time period, only the ambient tracks on the LP are from 2010. Two songs – “Footy” and “Good House” – were recorded in 2015 at Rare Book Room studio with Nicolas Vernhes, which included Tim Dewit (aka Dutch E Germ) playing drums on “Footy,” while the rest of the album was written and performed entirely by Deakin. Watch the video for “Just Am” below:

Sleep Cycle Tracklist

1. Golden Chords
2. Just Am
3. Shadow Mine
4. Footy
5. Seed Song
6. Good House