The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die Share Sprawling New Single “Dissolving”
From Album ‘Dreams of Being Dust’ Out August 22 Via Epitaph Records
On Tour This Fall, Headlining Dates Announced
“The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die have always been an intense, dramatic band, and it looks like they’re moving in even more intense and dramatic directions.” – Stereogum
Today, experimental post-rock sextet The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die share “Dissolving,” the latest preview of their new album ‘Dreams of Being Dust’ out August 22nd via Epitaph. Proving they’re still one of the most dynamic acts around, TWIABP sounds louder, darker, and more driven than ever. After putting their heavier inclinations on display with a string of brutal singles, “Dissolving” sees the band returning to lush textures and clear-eyed indie rock vocals, drowned in an ambient swell of distorted power chords.
Lead vocalist David F. Bello sets the tone: “Lyrically ‘Dissolving’ is set in the woods late at night, too far from home, alone enough to notice how fuzzy the boundary is between you and the rest of the outside world. You remember that your skin is always shedding into particles of dust, and there isn’t much difference between you and the trees and the dirt. No matter how old you become, you’re still developing, changing, and growing into something new. Even once you are nothing but a memory, you will have evolved and will haunt the air. Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ says ‘a cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust.’ You are made of mud and you can dream of returning to dust.”
Behind the creation of “Dissolving,” guitarist Chris Teti expounds: “To me ‘Dissolving’ musically is a deliberate combination of what I would want to hear if you took My Bloody Valentine and The Rising Tide era Sunny Day Real Estate. It might seem from what has been released so far that Dreams of Being Dust is just all chaotic and aggressive. While it does include material that is more aggressive than what’s been released so far, there needed to be some tracks that were a relief from the dissonance and chaos around it, but we didn’t want to include an interlude track like we normally have done on our albums. This need for songs that would serve as a relief sonically ended up spawning ‘Dissolving’ and another track on the record, ‘Oubliette.’
During the writing of the record, I kept revisiting CDs that meant a lot to me when I was younger, and listening to them to decompress after many long hours of reworking ideas and stressing about what direction the newest song ideas would be. That started to bleed into the record with influence coming from early Smashing Pumpkins (who were pretty clearly heavily influenced by MBV), Failure, and later era Sunny Day Real Estate.
I stumbled across a few open tunings late at night while writing various chord progression ideas, which became a basis for multiple songs on the album. The big goal for Dreams of Being Dust was to reinvent the band’s sound, and I found the only way to achieve that was putting the guitar into a random tuning, so I essentially had to forget how to play guitar. It resulted in me tuning strings randomly at 3am, stressed and disappointed in whatever I had written earlier in the night, until everything droned in a key that felt right.
‘Dissolving’ was one of the last songs written for the record and specifically was meant to be about as minimal as possible for a majority of the track (at least by our normally maximalist standards). The chord movements were later refined with my co-producer Greg Thomas. I think David is a brilliant lyricist and came up with a concept that perfectly captured all the feelings I had, but never could have conveyed as brilliantly in the slightest when this album came together.”
Co-produced by Teti and his studio partner Greg Thomas, then mastered by Will Putney, Dreams of Being Dust is a violent record for violent times. It’s also an incredibly important record, one that offers an unflinchingly real reflection of these troubled times we’re living in. While dark, it never despairs. Rather, it confronts and fights back with purpose and passion. Outside of its political contexts, it also feels like an important album on a personal level — the sound of a band reckoning with their own legacy and history, as well as the scene they’ve cultivated since forming in 2009.
The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die is Josh Cyr (bass), Steven Buttery (drums, percussion), David F. Bello (lead vocals), Chris Teti (guitar, vocals), Katie Dvorak (vocals, keyboards) and Anthony Gesa (guitar, vocals).
TWIABP Tour Dates – Tickets Available HERE
Sept. 14 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer #
Sept. 15 – Boston, MA – Royale #
Sept. 16 – Ottawa, ON –The Bronson #
Sept. 18 – Toronto, ON – The Danforth Music Hall #
Sept. 19 – Montreal, QC – Theatre Beanfield #
Sept. 20 – Portland, ME – Aura #
Sept. 21 – Albany, NY – Empire Live #
Sept. 23 – Pontiac, MI – Pike Room *
Sept. 24 – Chicago, IL – Cobra Lounge *
Sept. 25 – Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s *
Sept. 26 – Rochester, NY – Bug Jar *
Sept. 27 – Pittsburgh, PA – Preserving Underground *
Sept. 28 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups *
Sept. 30 – Washington, D.C. – Pearl Street *
Oct. 1 – Brooklyn, NY – Market Hotel *
Oct. 2 – Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom *
# w/ Between The Buried And Me
* Headlining Show
Dreams of Being Dust Tracklisting
1. Dimmed Sun
2. Se Sufre Pero Se Goza
3. No Pilgrim
4. Beware the Centrist
5. Oubliette
6. Captagon
7. Dissolving
8. Reject All and Submit
9. December 4th, 2024
10. Auguries of Guilt
11. For Those Who Will Outlive Us
