Listen: Phosphorescent Announces New Album ‘Revelator’

Photo credit: Curtis Wayne Millard

Phosphorescent, the stage name for Matthew Houck, has announced a new album titled Revelator, set to release on April 5. The artist’s ninth album–his first on Verve Records–will feature nine songs of careful meditation on unspoken truths in Houck’s typical earnest, lo-fi form. To accompany the album announcement, Phosphorescent has released “Revelator,” the album’s title single, alongside a dusky, ethereal music video.

Revelator was produced by Houck at his studio in Nashville, Tenn., over the past six months, with the company of collaborators like bass guitarist Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs and the Greenhornes and drummer Jim White of Dirty Three and Smog. Also featured on the album is pianist Jo Schornikow–Houck’s partner–who contributed “The World Is Ending,” the first Phosphorescent track to be written by anyone other than Houck. “Revelator,” the album’s preview track, is poignantly introspective and resolute, setting the tone for an album fixated on spilling meaning from life’s quiet moments. Its video shows Houck paddling along a great river, acknowledging the scenery just as he continues steadily towards an unseen destination. On the song’s origins and significance, Houck writes:

“This is the song that made me realize I was writing an album. There’s always one that does that; until then I’m sort of floundering around with a bunch of song bits in various stages with no clear picture of what it is I’m doing. Once the song “Revelator” came to be, I could see what the album could be. I truly struggled with naming the album Revelator, as I feel like it probably has certain biblical and genre connotations that don’t apply to this album or to Phosphorescent at all. But in the end I know what I mean by it, and the album really couldn’t be called anything else. And so that’s why this is the title track–I think it might be the best song I’ve ever written.”

Pre-save Revelator now, or visit jazz.centerstagestore.com to pre-order vinyl editions. Scroll down to listen to the first single.

Phosphorescent – Revelator

Revelator

The World Is Ending

Fences 

Impossible House

Wide As Heaven

A Moon Behind The Clouds

All The Same

A Poem On The Men’s Room Wall

To Get It Right