Phish Shares Stream Of New Studio Album ‘Big Boat’
By Scott Bernstein Sep 29, 2016 • 6:04 am PDT
On October 7 Phish will release the Bob Ezrin-produced studio effort Big Boat. Today the band has shared a stream of their 13th studio album through NPR’s First Listen series.
Most of the songs on the LP have been played live, but there are a five exceptions. “Home,” “Running Out Of Time,” “I Always Wanted It This Way,” “More” and “Petrichor” are the tunes that have yet to grace a Phish stage during a show. Guitarist Trey Anastasio has performed “Petrichor” with orchestras in the past. A 2014 post on Phish.com about the song reads, “Anastasio began composing Petrichor in November of 2012. In his spare moments, he began working out the melodies, using his iPhone to capture hundreds of voice memos. Over the course of two years, that early inspiration evolved into an intricate, thought-provoking opus. Anastasio will perform as a member of the orchestra, on electric guitar.” It would appear “Petrichor” is the song Hamilton percussionist/drummer Andres Forero discussed playing classical percussion on in an interview earlier this summer.
“Blaze On” and “No Men In No Man’s Land” were part of a batch of songs debuted during Phish’s tour-opening run in Bend, Oregon for their Summer Tour 2015. This summer’s tour saw a number of tunes from the album unveiled including “Friends,” “Breath & Burning,” “Tide Turns,” “Waking Up Dead,” “Things People Do” and “Miss You.” Both “Breath And Burning” and “Blaze On” cleverly come in at 4:20, while one of the biggest surprises is the length of Anastasio’s “Miss You” which clocks in at a healthy 7:02. Some of the songs Phish has debuted in recent years that didn’t make Big Boat are “Ass Handed,” “Let’s Go,” “Can’t Always Listen,” “Mercury” and “Shade.”
As mentioned, Big Boat was produced by Bob Ezrin whose past credits include Fuego, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, KISS’s Destroyer, Alice Cooper’s School’s Out and Peter Gabriel’s Peter Gabriel I. The LP was completed during Phish’s Summer Tour as guitarist Trey Anastasio revealed Phish was done with the album and dedicated “Sing Monica” to Ezrin at the final night of the band’s three-night stand at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco in July.
Phish laid down material for the new album at many locations according to a May interview with Anastasio published by Rolling Stone.
“We’re kind of all over the place, flying down to Nashville to work, and then I’ve been doing a lot of work on overdubs at Avatar, which is in Manhattan, and then we go to Burlington, and worked at the barn, and we’re even working at Page’s house and Mike’s house a little bit,” Trey said.
The quartet kicks off Fall Tour in North Charleston on October 14.
Big Boat Tracklist
- Friends – 3:43 (Fishman)
- Breath And Burning – 4:20 (Anastasio)
- Home – 6:27 (McConnell)
- Blaze On – 4:20 (Anastasio/Marshall)
- Tide Turns – 4:21 (Anastasio)
- Things People Do – 1:55 (McConnell)
- Waking Up Dead – 4:15 (Gordon/Murawski)
- Running Out Of Time – 3:32 (Anastasio/Marshall)
- No Men In No Man’s Land – 5:00 (Anastasio/Marshall)
- Miss You – 7:02 (Anastasio)
- I Always Wanted It This Way – 4:29 (McConnell)
- More – 4:22 (Anastasio)
- Petrichor – 13:33 (Anastasio)
