Earlimart Pick Up the Pace to Release New Album

After taking three years to release their previous two albums, Earlimart did what you might not expect these loping Los Angeles dream-pop vets to do: The duo picked up their pace, releasing their sixth album, 'Hymn & Her,' within 12 months of last summer's 'Mentor Tormentor.' "We sought to do the opposite of the last record this time, so we went right into the studio after our tour," frontman and producer Aaron Espinoza recalls to Spinner. "We had toured as a five-piece with a string section and decided to strip things back down. We had no songs; we just cranked the album out on the spot."

Churning out a record in such a rushed manner might make other bands' music sound restless, but Earlimart unfold spacey, extended outros on nearly every track and sing about taking the long way on lonesome highways. Still, the finished product sounds like the antithesis to their recording process: "It was pretty nuts in 'The Ship,'" Espinoza says of the name he gave their studio. "Just as I put down vocals and guitars, Ariana [Murray] would start layering melodies and I'd be out back writing the next song. We were like a factory."

That's not to say that Espinoza and Murray weren't having any fun with 'Hymn & Her,' which, like previous albums, sees release on their own Majordomo label. They boast some sweet, singalong choruses ('For the Birds') and have a song penned after Murray got a new gold tooth to encase a chip from her childhood ('Teeth'). And here, excitement was found in seeing how songs might happen to develop. Says Espinoza, "This album has a bit of a looser feel than our others -- sounds just go where they want to go."