Description
Baby Man, the new album by Fruit Bats, is like nothing else in songwriter Eric D. Johnsons catalogue. Little in the arc of his careerincluding Fruit Bats evolution from home recording project to rollicking roadshow, his solo output, and his work with Bonny Light Horsemanpoints the way to this album, in which his only accompaniment, aside from the occasional blush of synthesizer, is a guitar, banjo, or piano. Save for producer Thom Monahan, reuniting with Johnson for the first time since Fruit Bats 2019 breakthrough Gold Past Life, its just Johnson in the room, meaning that when the turntables needle meets Baby Mans groove, its just him and the listener, mutually in for a reckoning. Monahans return to the booth was vital: having mapped the outer limits of Erics musical imagination, nobody was better equipped for the deepest trip yet into his soul. Baby Man is an intimate album, but rather than deliver a stripped-down or back-to-basics approach to the Fruit Bats sound, its introspection is rendered at epic scale. Its minimalist-maximalism, Johnson says of his and Monahans approach. There are fewer tracks on each songfour or five at mostcompared to recent albums where thered maybe be five tracks on a song just for synthsbut this is me at my most hi-fi.
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