Boston project Animal Hospital — aka Kevin Micka — once released three LPs in the 2000s. Those were 2005’s Self Titled, 2009’s Good Or Plenty, Streets + Avenues, and the same year’s Memory. Since then, Micka has been guitar teching for Yo La Tengo and engineering for local Boston bands. But Micka’s been releasing music as Animal Hospital again; in 2020 he shared the Fatigue LP and this year’s Found and OK, Kevin EPs. Now, Micka has announced a new album, Shelf Life, which features the hypnotic lead single “Fuselage.” There’s also a music video starring Jersey Beat dancer/choreographer Khiyamisha “Fendikyy” McDougald and her crew.

“A lot of my work takes a long time to come to a sense of completion,” says Micka of his sporadic output. “It takes some effort to let go and get perspective or distance from the work in order to re-engage with it.”

He adds about his performance style and evolution as a composer: “I became less concerned whether I could pull these off in a live setting on my own. Nothing needs to be definitive and everything can and should be reinterpreted and continue to live on in a new and different life. Some tracks continued feeling best in a solo context, even more deconstructed than my early material, but at the same time, I thought bigger.”

Listen to and watch the video for “Fuselage.”

TRACKLIST:
A1 “Fuselage”
A2 “Awful Beast”
B3 “His Amazing Friends”
B4 “As Always”

Shelf Life is out 11/03 via Sipsman. Pre-order it here.