Earlier in August, Los Angeles’ Young Jesus announced a new album, Shepherd Head, out September 16 via Saddle Creek. John Rossiter & Co. have already shared a lead single with Saddle Creek labelmate Tomberlin called “Ocean,” and now they’re sharing a second and final single before the album’s release. It’s a grandiose, operatic song called “Rose Eater.”
“Rose Eater” also has a video with the backing track being slightly different than what shows up on the album. The video actually interweaves a solo live performance from Rossiter, which the singer says reflects the “exploratory” approach he took to making Shepherd Head.
“I wrote ‘Rose Eater’ on the piano and tried to record it. I used the internal mic on my computer because at the time I had lent my microphone to Emerald House, a beautiful DIY space and small community in LA,” Rossiter explains. “The recording of the piano sounded horrible. So I pitched it down and ran it through a million effects until it sounded like Enya or Peter Gabriel strings. The lyrics are in line with that ethos. Trying very hard to be the ‘ideal’ of something or someone, and finding the truth of oneself is very different and is perhaps discovered in the process. The video is very much in conversation with that evolving process, the unfinished work of a life, and the fun that lives right next to ‘serious’ art and life.”
Rossiter continues: “I think it fits with the way I made the album, which was allowing in sounds of the environment, not going for a perfectly quiet room while recording. Allowing mediums and ways of capturing a video of music into a format that traditionally has a very specific way of communicating. Trying to be creative rather than fulfill an assignment. Unconventional but hopefully it’s got a spirit all its own!”
Listen and watch both versions of “Rose Eater” below.
Shepherd Head is out 9/16 via Saddle Creek.
