The Needle Drop

Mark Kozelek with Donny McCaslin and Jim White - "Day in America" ft. Kevin Corrigan

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As we all know at this point, Mark Kozelek is never not recording music, hence the recent announcement of a new collaborative album with Blackstar saxophonist/flautist Donny McCaslin and drummer/previous collaborator Jim White. Mark has a solo album dropping in May, as well as a Sun Kil Moon album in November, so he doesn't plan for this collab to come out before 2019.

However, we already have the 15-minute-long lead single, "Day in America," which makes ridiculously timely commentary on the Valentine's Day shooting in Florida. Despite the unfortunate suggestion in the song's opening seconds that Sandy Hook is a high school, Mark's sentiments on the subject are respectable. Even his eye-for-an-eye vision of justice is hard to fault in the face of such atrocity. You certainly can't say the man's not doing his part to combat the normalization of gun violence. But, as is often the case, Mark's lyrics stray from the topic at hand. (Let's just not talk about the part when he confuses Bill Evans with Bob Evans, OK?)

The instrumental is quite progressive and heads in all sorts of interesting directions, as well; closing with a monologue from actor Kevin Corrigan as he reflects on the tragedy. You can listen to the song below or download it by clicking here.

-Austen