Bright Eyes will reissue their nine studio albums along with Companion EPs for each title beginning with their first three LPs which will arrive with their Companion EPs via Dead Oceans on May 27. Bright Eyes previewed the Companion series with three tracks “Contrast And Compare” featuring Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield), “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh” featuring Phoebe Bridgers and “Falling Out of Love At This Volume.”
Fifteen-year-old singer-songwriter Conor Oberst formed Bright Eyes in 1995 as a recording project along with producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis. Both Mogis and multi-instrumentalist Nate Walcott became full-time members in 2006. Bright Eyes’ first three LP’s are 1998’s A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 and Letting Off The Happiness along with 2000’s Fevers and Mirrors. The Companion EPs, which Oberst called the “supplemental reading” for the primary reissues, will contain five re-recorded tracks from the albums along with a cover that influenced Oberst and company at the time.
“My thing was they had to sound different from the originals, we had to mess with them in a substantial way,” Oberst said of the material on the Companion EPs in a press release. “It’s a meaningful way to connect with the past that doesn’t feel totally nostalgic and self-indulgent. We are taking these songs and making them interesting to us all over again. I like that. I like a challenge. I like to be forced to do something that’s slightly hard, just to see if we can.”
Bright Eyes previewed the three Companion EPs with a re-recorded track from each including “Falling Out of Love At This Volume” from their debut album as well as “Contrast And Compare” featuring Waxahatchee originally from Letting Off The Happiness and “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh” featuring Oberst’s Better Oblivion Community Center bandmate Phoebe Bridgers from Fevers And Mirrors. Bridgers appears on four of the five originals on the Fevers And Mirrors Companion as well as an Elliot Smith cover on the Happiness Companion. Waxahatchee contributes to the Letting Off The Happiness Companion alongside M. Ward and Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond). All told, Bright Eyes will release 54 new recordings in the coming year.
Oberst and company are also set to hit the road in 2022 as well beginning on March 23 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Omaha-bred band will make stops throughout their native Midwest along with swings through the South, Texas, the Northeast and West Coast. Bright Eyes will wrap the U.S. portion of the tour with a two-night hometown stand in Omaha on July 2 and 3 before heading to Europe.
Check out the Bright Eyes’ tour dates and also preview their Companion series with “Contrast And Compare” featuring Waxahatchee, “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh” featuring Phoebe Bridgers and “Falling Out of Love At This Volume” below:
Contrast And Compare
Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh
Falling Out Of Love At This Volume
Companion EP Tracklists:
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997: A Companion
- Driving Fast Through A Big City At Night
- Solid Jackson
- A Celebration Upon Completion
- Falling Out of Love At This Volume
- Exaltation On A Cool Kitchen Floor
- Double Joe (Simon Joyner cover)
Letting Off The Happiness: A Companion
- The Difference In The Shades
- The City Has Sex (feat. Waxahatchee)
- Contrast And Compare (feat. Waxahatchee)
- Kathy With A K’s Song (feat. M Ward)
- St. Ides Heaven (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) (Elliott Smith cover)
- June On The West Coast (feat. Becky Stark)
Fevers and Mirrors: A Companion
- Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
- A Scale, A Mirror, And Those Indifferent Clocks (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
- Arienette
- Hypnotist (Song for Daniel H) (Lullaby For The Working Class cover)
- When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
- A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, And A Necklace (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
