If it seems like just yesterday that we were reporting on Andrew W.K.'s mysterious trail of tears; you're wrong. It was four days ago, and you can find that story here. With the town hall meeting still weeks away, AWK (or perhaps the artist formerly known as) has now unveiled some more big plans: the release of his album, Close Calls With Brick Walls, on March 9th. The LP, which features a full instrumental band, has been available in Japan and Korea since 2006 but will be sold as a two album package for its American and European debut. The second disc, Mother of Mankind, is a collection of rare and unreleased material. If it seems like just yesterday that we were reporting on Andrew W.K.’s mysterious trail of tears; you’re wrong. It was four days ago, and you can find that story here. With the town hall meeting still weeks away, AWK (or perhaps the artist formerly known as) has now unveiled some more big plans: the release of his album, Close Calls With Brick Walls, on March 9th. The LP, which features a full instrumental band, has been available in Japan and Korea since 2006 but will be sold as a two album package for its American and European debut. The second disc, Mother of Mankind, is a collection of rare and unreleased material.
The album’s press release from Big Machine Media makes no attempt at hiding the artist’s strange past few weeks. What it fails to do, however, is clarify any of the confusion. It highlights the aspects of his person that were taken from his days in Ann Arbor and exploited for the stage (which apparently means his white t-shirt and long hair… so we’re now supposed to think of that as his genuine self? or not? huh?). It goes on to discuss his surprising appearance (in a suit!) in the likes of Esquire and V-Man, his new gig hosting Cartoon Network’s Destroy Build Destroy and his solo piano album. It then uses all this as evidence that as AWK fans, we have been taken on a journey with the artist, and his latest release is the outcome of our shared struggles.
And this is all before the part where I tell you it says ‘Released by STEEV MIKE’ in big old letters right next to the new album announcement (if that name does not raise any flags for you, please see previous link). While it hardly fleshes out the infamous Steev’s role any further, it does call Close Calls With Brick Walls the “album that the world was almost denied from hearing by forces beyond his control.” Right. Basically, this is all doing a really good job of making AWK’s Ask Anything Night the make or break moment of his rather silly career, and I still stand my ground that the whole thing would have been better left in the irrelevant ether from which it arose. The press release seems to support this theory as well, albeit unintentionally, but it’s up to the hardy partier himself to handle his little Jekyll and Hyde now.
