NYC/Boston indie rock vets Sleepyhead will release New Alchemy, their first album in eight years, this Friday, August 19. They made it at legendary Boston studio Q Division, and the title was inspired by New Alchemy Institute, a utopian research facility founded by idealistic scientists in the 1970’s in Falmouth, Massachusetts, the hometown of Sleepyhead guitarist/vocalist Chris O’Rourke. For years O'Rourke had wanted to write songs about the trips there he took as a child, and here decided to use it for the new album's title.
We've got the premiere of the sweet, jangly "Pam and Eddie," which Chris says is "one of two songs inspired by things we saw written out in the world." He elaborates: "In this case something etched onto a stone stair in [drummer/vocalist Rachael McNally]’s late sister’s apartment building in Brooklyn, where her husband, our dear brother-in-law, best known as Uncle Andrew, still lives. It says “EDDIE -N- PAM 4-EVER 10-12-90 I LOVE YOU.”