Brooklyn-based quartet My Favourite Things have announced the new album ‘Fly I
Will, Because I Can’, which is slated for release on July 14, 2017, but are already
teasing the first single 'A Little Closer, loaded with shoegaze and dreampop
goodness.
This is the third album from My Favourite Things, founded in Brooklyn by Dorothea
Tachler (formerly of Igloo, The Swirlies, Alles Wie Gross). Fans of Beach House,
Broadcast, dreampop and shoegaze should enjoy the album’s melancholic swaying,
melody-rich offerings. This album should also appeal to lovers of acoustic folk music
artists such as James Yorkston and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
From a young age, her Korean/German/Croatian background has immersed her in a
diversity of musical influences, which have shaped her. In 2009, she
released “rarara” (Afterhours/Japan), followed by “Tomorrow’s Far Away”
in 2013, featuring guest vocals from several friends and former band-mates,
including Valerie Trebeljahr of Lali Puna, Damon Tutunjan from The Swirlies,
Daru Oda (Norah Jones), Sean Meadows (June of 4, Lungfish), and Doug
Scharin (Codeine, HIM, Rex).
Once again, Dorothea wrote and produced all the songs with their many textures,
owing to the use of multiple instruments, many of which she also played: violins,
flutes and autoharps weave in and out of twinkling glockenspiels, vibraphones and
intricate, sometimes shredding guitars, delivered on a solid bed of a grabbing bass
and ripping drums, with Dorothea’s balmy voice hovering and twinkling atop.
When performing live, My Favourite Things appear in different formations, ranging
from a solo act to a five-piece band, featuring prominent musicians from the buoyant
New York scene: Yoshio “Tony” Kobayashi on drums, Yusuke Yamamoto on
vibraphone and synthesizers, Michael Figgiani on bass, and various other talents.
The band has played many venues in the unforgiving NYC music circuit, transporting
transfixed audiences from their chaotic built-up urban environments to a twilight
world of their own favourite things. Last year, My Favourite Things also toured
Germany, featuring Notwist frontman Markus Acher on drums, along with other
talented and experienced musicians from Germany’s active band scene.
This album marks a new era for Dorothea, who uses songwriting as a medium to
deal with difficult situations that life has dealt her. “This album has made me grow as
a songwriter, producer and recording engineer. From a different perspective, this
record was like my journal in a difficult time, ridden with a lot of changes: a lot of my
friends and family had moved away, my relationship ended, I lost my apartment and
had to move, and I became sober, which lead to losing specific social contacts I had
until then, who I had thought of as friends – it was all hard, but rewarding in the end
to go through this process,” explains Dorothea Tachler.
“Music was my anchor and my lighthouse in stormy and dark nights, and putting my
inner turmoil into words really helped me process it better. It was kind of my
metamorphosis, being disintegrated like a chrysalis, and being shaped into
something new.”
