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Atmosphere Announce New Album “Fishing Blues,” Listen to “Ringo”

Legendary Minneapolis duo Atmosphere have announced a brand new album, their seventh, titled Fishing Blues. It’s set to come out on August 12 via their own label Rhymesayers, and the first single, titled Ringo, is available now with an accompanying video.

The eighteen-track offering is obviously helmed by production from Ant and rapping from Slug, along with some really special guest features from DOOM, Kool Keith, Aesop Rock and more.

Atmosphere have been anything but quiet of late, having released eight standalone tracks since last September with verses from Aesop Rock, Blueprint and more, although none of these will feature on the upcoming album.

Fishing Blues — out Aug. 12, 2016 via Rhymesayers — was not the original album title. During a promotional photo shoot, Slug and Ant saw a sticker on the side of a canoe in a nearby lake, and it stuck. In an interview with The Current, Slug said that, “All the songs are about fishing, and I don’t mean literally about fishing, but all the songs are about trying to secure something; trying to find something; fishing for compliments; fishing for validation; fishing for food, love, money.”

While the single may share the same name as a Beatle, it’s apparently about nobody in particular. “Looking at myself and some of my friends and seeing those of us that ‘live that life’ for an extended period of time you get to find yourself in role reversals: the idea of the falling star; the idea of the guy that’s on the top of the world and then suddenly on the rock bottom. Or vice versa, the guy that’s on rock bottom but manages to lift himself out and put himself on top.”

The video sets the scene for a kind of overly theatrical play about a medieval court, and as the actors drink offstage, the performance gets a little out of hand. Backed by Atmosphere’s signature bouncy rhythms and illustrative lyrics, makes for a pretty damn enjoyable four and a half minutes.

This is Atmosphere’s first album since Southsiders in 2014. Check the track listing below, and pre-order the album here.

Fishing Blues Track Listing:
01 – Like A Fire
02 – Ringo
03 – Besos
04 – Pure Evil (feat. I.B.E)
05 – Perfect
06 – Seismic Waves
07 – Next To You (feat. deM atlaS)
08 – The Shit That We’ve Been Through
09 – When The Lights Go Out (feat. DOOM & Kool Keith)
10 – No Biggie
11 – Everything
12 – Chasing New York (feat. Aesop Rock)
13 – Sugar
14 – Fishing Blues (feat. The Grouch)
15 – Won’t Look Back (feat. Kim Manning)
16 – Anybody That I’ve Known
17 – Still Be Here
18 – A Long Hello

Image: Supplied