Over the ensuing decade, Kivel collaborated closely with a growing set of brilliant, and varied musicians from across the globe, including Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Alasdair Roberts, Madi Diaz, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Jana Horn, and Satomimagae. He moved to Austin, Texas then left for New York City for a spell and then returned to Austin where he settled down. In 2017, he started writing the songs for what would become his eighth solo album, “Escape from L.A.”
“Escape from L.A.” is an autobiographical song cycle that chronicles the first 33 years of Kivel’s life in the City of Angels. The material was labored over, rewritten, rearranged, and rerecorded numerous times, between LA, New York, and Austin. Kivel self-effacingly refers to it as his “bootleg as hell Blood on the Tracks” with myriad alternate sequences, tempos and arrangements that will never see the light of day. It involved over 20 collaborators, a string section, pedal steel guitars, and a renewed lyrical and vocal clarity that allows the narrative vignettes to unspool in vivid detail.
Kivel sings about freeway pile ups, the Northridge earthquake, the fall of the twin towers as transmitted via television news, the glitter of Hollywood celebrities, and a mythical tsunami that could wipe out all of LA and then pairs it with the quotidian details of his life — teenage romances on the beach, a dying dog, the failure of his first band set against the backdrop of Vampire Weekend’s meteoric rise, a meditative conversation with his twin brother outside Dodger stadium, and, strikingly, the tale of his family’s move to Los Angeles in 1988, spurred by the casting of his father in the baseball epic The Natural, alongside Robert Redford.
It's a beautiful, grounded statement and one of Kivel’s best. The album comes out December 12 via Scissor Tail Records. Kivel will tour in support of it through the fall and winter with dates announced alongside friends Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Grace Rogers, and North Americans.
