Blues Funeral Recordings unveil all details for the widely anticipated split album between London psychedelic doom pillars ELEPHANT TREE and Swedish stoner rock giants LOWRIDER, to be released worldwide on October 25th. Discover the first single with Elephant Tree’s new video for “Long Forever”!
Like two timelines converging, Elephant Tree and Lowrider come together to present the collaborative album “The Long Forever”, easily one of the most eagerly awaited split releases in the history of heavy rock.
Arriving in the wake of two landmark 2020 releases (“Habits” from Elephant Tree and “Refractions” from Lowrider), “The Long Forever” finds both bands at critical junctures: each has a broad and expanding influence, each is revered onstage and off, and each is delivering its first proper new release in four years to tremendous anticipation. Despite that pressure, Elephant Tree and Lowrider have seized the opportunity to redefine who they are and declare where their musical voyages will go next. Bringing these bands onto a shared collaborative platter would be an event regardless of the surrounding circumstances. As it is, though, the significance of this album is even greater.
Watch Elephant Tree’s new video “Long Forever“
+ listen to the single on all streaming services
“The Long Forever” takes its title from the nickname Elephant Tree singer/guitarist Jack Townley gave to the multi-week coma he was kept in for medical reasons following a near-fatal biking accident in early 2023. Dreaming without waking and losing all sense of time as his mind attempted to process and cope with the ordeal, that lyrical description can only hint at the enormity of Jack’s experience.
And yet, the year or so that followed manifested a musical freedom in the bands’ respective approaches. Lowrider has grown more complex and expressive, while Elephant Tree has chosen a rawer, set-up-the-mics-and-go approach. “The Long Forever” is the vehicle through which the bands meet, subverting and superseding the expectations on them, with a traumatic nexus as the gravitational singularity around which the entire LP orbits, bending and shaping every note that escapes forth.
“This record is a huge moment for us as it marks our return to creating new music after my accident. This process was all about getting back into the room together, and the recording was just a small part of this track’s journey out of the ether,” says Jack Townley.
Stress, trauma, time, gravity, sound, joy, catharsis and texture all find a place across the record’s 43 minutes, but what resonates is the stridence with which Elephant Tree and Lowrider meet at the convergence of timelines and complement each other in evolving listeners’ ideas of who they are. In the end, perseverance, healing and stubbornness of passion are what made “The Long Forever” a reality. We invite fans to listen with open minds and love in their hearts.
“The Long Forever” will be issued on limited vinyl, classic vinyl, CD digipack and digital formats on October 25th following a highly limited release as part of the revered Blues Funeral Recordings PostWax series, with preorders available now.
ELEPHANT TREE & LOWRIDER “The Long Forever” split album
Out October 25th on Blues Funeral Recordings (LP/CD/digital)
Preorder on Bandcamp, Bluesfuneral.com and SPKR shop
