Matt Bachmann (Mega Bog, Hand Habits) announces new solo album (stream “Apple Pie”)

In addition to playing in Hand Habits and Mega Bog, Matt Bachmann also releases music as Pachanga, Big Eater, and under his own name. Today he announced his new solo album, Dream Logic, due June 18 via Orindal Records and We Be Friends. The album was mostly recorded by Matt alone in his Brooklyn apartment, but it does feature some guest musicians, including members of Mega Bog (Derek Baron), Big Thief (James Krivchenia), and more. “Up until this record, I had carefully contained my musical styles into neat collections,” Matt says, “recording songwriting material under the moniker Big Eater, recording jazz-oriented instrumental music under the moniker Pachanga, and recording repetitive melodic drone music under my own name. The guiding principle behind Dream Logic was to integrate these modalities of music-making, allowing whatever was going to come out to come out, and not worry if it made sense.”

The first single is “Apple Pie,” a gorgeous, slightly jazzy, vibraphone-fueled ambient pop song that’s dedicated to Matt’s father. “His apple pies have been a kind of a fixation of mine over the last ten years; I’ve written a short story about them and the eulogy I gave at his funeral centered around his pies,” Matt says. “ALS is a disease that first affects your ability to speak before affecting your ability to move and eventually all of your bodily functions. During one of the last Christmases he was still able to move, we baked together and he was adding ingredients almost randomly it seemed – he didn’t seem with it and I was sure the pie was going to taste terrible but lo and behold, it ended up tasting great. It was one of those reminding moments that below the fog of ALS, he was still there. He would surprise you like that at times.”

The song kind of combines the delicate intimacy of songwriters like Perfume Genius and Sufjan Stevens with the hypnotic instrumentation of TNT-era Tortoise, and Matt really makes it his own in the process. Listen below.

Tracklist
1. Childish Spark
2. Glass Carousel
3. Apple Pie
4. Novel Crime
5. Tears in Rain
6. Hard Times
7. April
8. My Dad and His Boat
9. Outer Window
10. Wildegeeses
11. L4L