John Carroll Kirby announces new album Blowout out on 30 June
John Carroll Kirby (Photo credit - Sela Shiloni)
Listen to “Oropendola”: https://sthrow.com/oropendola
Preorder / presave Blowout: https://sthrow.com/blowout
John Carroll Kirby has announced a new solo album Blowout, inspired by a period in Costa Rica spent playing with local musicians and imagining “failed utopias”. The album arrives June 30th via Stones Throw, and today you can hear the first song from it, “Oropendola”. Kirby explains the song’s title: “The oropendola is a very cool bird that lives in a sac-like hanging nest. There was a tree full of them outside where I stayed that woke me up every morning at 5am, so I had to write a song about them.”
In 2021, Kirby visited Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica to film an episode of his travelogue series Kirby’s Gold with the Kawe Calypso Band. Between wake-up calls from oropendola birds and psychedelic sunsets, Kirby wrote Blowout. After the sun went down, he’d jam with local Calypso legends and sneak in the occasional gig playing Bob Marley covers and standards at Puerto Viejo’s bars. He finished Blowout with a stripped-down band at 64 Sound Studios, Los Angeles.
Blowout teeters between two definitions of its title – a moment of destruction and one big party. As he wrote the album, Kirby contemplated episodes of collective madness or delusion, such as Fyre Festival and the Heaven's Gate cult, imagining “a festival where everyone gets beamed up to utopia or heaven instead of starving or dying unfulfilled.” Blowout is less explicitly spiritual than Kirby’s earlier records; instead, it considers the mysteries of the universe via an irreverent path – think Haruomi Hosono, Sun Ra, or Laraaji. Kirby says, “I'm trying to use imagination in music to create my own myths, and keep things playful and funny and not too sanctimonious.”
A prolific artist, Kirby has finessed a sound signature that’s recognisably his own; in addition to releasing his own music, he’s a collaborator sought after by superstars and indie artists alike. He has recently worked with Yves Tumor, Laraaji, Liv.e, Remi Wolf and Eddie Chacon, and earned a Grammy nod for Steve Lacy’s hit “Bad Habit”. While Kirby is proud of these collaborations, it’s on the solo records that his personality shines through, and Blowout is alive with the refreshing breeziness, warmth, and curious blend of humor and devotion that make his music so addictive.
Tour Dates
May 20 Dublin - Sugar Club w/ Eddie Chacon
May 26 - London Gala Festival
May 28 - Stockholm Fasching
July 30 - Yuzawa Fuji Rock
Aug 26 - Port Townsend Thing Festival
Blowout artwork
1. Oropendola
2. Mates
3. The Takedown
4. Hotel Jonny Chingas
5. Vertigo
6. So So So
7. Sun Go Down
8. Gecko Sound
9. Flying Cat
10. Mates (Dub)
11. So So So (Dub)
12. Hotel Jonny Chingas (Dub)
About John Carroll Kirby
John Carroll Kirby is an artist, producer, composer and keyboardist from Los Angeles. Though Kirby's background is steeped in jazz, his signature sound blends genres and styles. An in-demand collaborator for artists ranging from superstars Solange, Frank Ocean and Harry Styles to indie musicians Yves Tumor, Connan Mockasin, Liv.e, and many more, Kirby has lately focused on his own solo output, releasing five LPs on Stones Throw in three years.
My Garden (2020), a blend of jazz and exotica, was praised by The Fader, LA Times, Q, and Mojo. The same year, Kirby released Conflict, a calming piano album in response to the year’s chaos. Following his first film score for the animated feature Cryptozoo, Kirby’s 2021 jazz-fusion release Septet marked a return to ensemble playing, while Dance Ancestral (2022), with additional production from Canadian artist YuSu, took a more electronic-forward approach.
Alongside these records, Kirby has released episodes of Kirby’s Gold, a web series inspired by Huell Howser’s California Gold. In the series, Kirby chats and improvises with artists ranging from painter Ariana Papademetropoulos to an Eastern European choir. Kirby recently received a Grammy nod for his work on Steve Lacy’s hit “Bad Habit”, and in March 2023, Stones Throw released Sundown, his album-length collaboration with “lowkey R&B legend” Eddie Chacon.
