saplings (Youth Pastoral Deluxe)

good morning ~

Tomorrow will mark FIVE YEARS since the release of Youth Pastoral, an album of songs I put out about breaking, breaking up, and breaking up with God. It was the second to last day of a leap year February and within a week the entire world was about to change. But we didn’t know that at the time, so we all crammed into an over-capacity Union Pool and sang and cried within many overlapping six foot circles, the last big gig many of us went to that year.

Another strange thing happened: these songs really resonated with people, far more than anything else I had ever put out, and I spent the first couple months of quarantine mailing out the entire run of LPs, one nice way to stay connected to the outside world. They sold out, we never really got another chance to play these songs to an audience, and the world turned.

I’m very happy to announce today - almost exactly five years later - that Tiny Engines will soon be putting out an extremely loving “Deluxe Edition” reissue of Youth Pastoral. For the first time in five years, there will be LP copies available, with a new master done by original engineer Gus Elg. Plus, we asked powerclash layout genius Alex Tatusian to design entirely new album art and packaging that goes just as hard - if not harder - as the art he did for Allora (you can see it up above). And digital copies of album on streaming and on Bandcamp will feature never-before-heard demos & outtakes. The first of those unreleased tracks is out today - here’s a streaming link:

I’m not sure why “Saplings” didn’t make the cut in the studio, because this demo is fantastic - what starts innocently enough as a guitar-and-voice solo builds over 2.5 minutes into something menacing, towering, and acidic. Recorded live to tape by Nico Hedley at our old practice space, it hints at the edge of anger that runs like a riptide through Youth Pastoral.

LP copies are available now for preorder and we’ll release one other track before the entire deluxe edition becomes available in April. I’m working on some release/anniversary shows in May, as well, including at least one in a church, so we can (tentatively) gather again around this music soon. Thank you for listening.

oh my god oh my god oh my god,

ben