Just today, he’s digitally released a jittery new single, “Suddenly Summer,” a frenetic tune with a fantastically surf-y mid-song guitar solo. It comes from his forthcoming full-length, The Second Golden Age of Piracy, which will be released later this year.
“I wrote four new songs during the first week of quarantine and had 15 others sitting around, and I figured it would help preserve my sanity if started documenting some of these songs, even if it’s a different record than I’d planned on making,” says McKean in a press release about the album.
The Second Golden Age of Piracy finds McKean trading some of the folkier elements of his last few releases for a poppier approach. McKean sang, played the instruments and recorded the songs and sent them to pal Don Dixon (R.E.M., Marshall Crenshaw, Smithereens) to mix.
“It was great to have Don [Dixon] to talk me through the process, and, of course, it’s always great to have him involved with any recording project,” says McKean. “I wasn’t sure I could come up with something that sounded this good by puttering around in my basement, but he really saw it through.”
McKean, who also plays in the Ohio City Singers and the Boys From the County Hell, will continue to release new songs every few weeks leading up to the release of The Second Golden Age of Piracy, his fifth solo album.
“Suddenly Summer,” as well as the rest of McKean’s catalog, is available for download at bandcamp.com or for streaming via Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
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This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2020.
