WOODS Share “Lay With Luck” From Surprise New ‘Five More Flowers’ EP

The landmark anniversaries continue with the Brooklyn, New York outfit, WOODS, coming up on 20 years since Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Taveniere first formed the project out of the ashes of their former band, Meneguar. Since then, WOODS has maintained a consistent schedule with rarely a year going by without at least one new release appearing. Not surprisingly, the biggest gap came between their 2020 album, Strange To Explain, and last year’s Perennial LP, coinciding with the pandemic and in the wake of the untimely passing of David Berman, whom WOODS had been collaborating with and supporting as a backing band for his Purple Mountains project. Now, less than 5 months after dropping their latest full-length the guys are back with a brand new track and the announcement of a “surprise” EP that contains it.

The one thing that epitomizes WOODS to me is growth. The first time I saw them live, they were on a bill opening for Swedish pastoral psych-folk outfit, Dungen. It was 2009 and they had just released Songs Of Shame on Earl‘s Woodsist label. At the time, the lineup included G. Lucas Crane manipulating pre-recorded tape noises with a mixer at the front of the stage and Kevin Morby alternating between bass guitar and drum duties. Songs Of Shame was a lo-fi indie-folk effort supported by the undeniable strength of the songwriting. Morby would remain in the group for the next two albums, At Echo Lake and Sun & Shade, before fully embarking on a successful solo career. With each new release, the sound would become more polished and full, yet, surprisingly, never lose the power of the rawer earlier recordings. If anything, their gift for song structure and melody has only become stronger. More and more instruments would be integrated into the compositions and the lineup continued to shift. When City Sun Eater In The River Of Light dropped in 2016, it was the start of an era that included a full-on horn section. Each and every phase of WOODS has been great and their evolution has been so organic.

The latest incarnation is back to the more stripped-down variety, member-wise, but the experimentation of sounds hasn’t ended. The press release offers some insight into the recording process of the new EP, Five More Flowers, as well as the album that came before it.

“The sessions producing Perennial and subsequently Five More Flowers grew from a bed of guitar, keyboard, and drum loops by Jeremy Earl, a form of winter night meditation that evolved into an unexplored mode of collaborative songwriting. With Earl’s starting points, he and bandmates Jarvis Taveniere and John Andrews convened, first at Earl’s house in New York, then at Panoramic House studio in Stinson Beach, California, site of sessions for 2020’s Strange To Explain.”

You can check out the first single, “Lay With Luck” below followed by a list of upcoming tour dates.

Woods Tour Dates:
Fri. Apr. 5 – Woodstock, NY @ Colony ∆
Sat. Apr. 6 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit Hall ∆
Sun. Apr. 7 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom ∆
Mon. Apr. 8 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall ∆
Wed. Apr. 10 – Detroit, MI @ El Club ∆
Thu. Apr. 11 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern ∆
Fri. Apr. 12 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz ∆
Sat. Apr. 13 – New York, NY @ Knockdown Center ∆
Sun. Apr. 14 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair ∆
Fri. Aug. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ The Orpheum &
Sat. Aug. 17 – Portland, OR @ Pioneer Courthouse Square &
Sun. Aug. 18 – Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheater &

∆ w/ Avey Tare
& w/ Waxahatchee