Out February 22, the fifth full-length album Michael Benjamin Lerner has recorded as Telekinesis is perfect, unfussy power pop—romantic and hopeful and skittish and fresh and familiar, with hooks in all the right places. Its title, Effluxion, comes from the Latin term meaning “to flow” and captures the spirit in which the album was made: hooks flow in, hooks flow out. 

Listen to the quiet-loud-quiet first single “Set a Course” accompanied by a self-shot lyric video, both of which are premiering today on American Songwriter. Pre-order Effluxion now on CD, LP, and mint green Peak Vinyl in the Merge store, or wherever you buy music. Last but not least, purchase tickets for Telekinesis’ big North American spring headlining tour.

After Lerner largely traded guitars and drums for moodier synthesizers and drum machines on 2015’s Ad Infinitum—more OMD than GBV—Scottish indie-pop gods Teenage Fanclub invited Lerner on board as a touring member in 2017. In addition to this being genie-lamp wish fulfillment for a devoted acolyte (see: Telekinesis’ cover of “The Concept” and also pretty much everything Telekinesis has ever recorded), playing those songs every night with his heroes brought him back to known pleasures.

Effluxion is, in the purest way, a back-to-basics album—not just in its reaffirmation of the sound and style that made Lerner an indie wunderkind a decade ago at age 22, but in the way it was created. Using the same now-discontinued MacBook microphone he used to record his earliest tracks, he holed up in the basement of his West Seattle home and put the album together piece by piece over the past two years, playing every instrument. While previous albums had former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla (who discovered and championed Telekinesis’ demos) and Spoon’s Jim Eno serving as producers and sounding boards and sidemen and general voices of authority and experience, Lerner wanted to do this one entirely on his own—a singular vision that has resulted in the purest, most confident Telekinesis album yet.

Telekinesis on tour:
Apr 01 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
Apr 02 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
Apr 04 Omaha, NE – Slowdown Jr.
Apr 05 Davenport, IA – The Raccoon Motel
Apr 06 St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
Apr 07 Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
Apr 08 Chicago, IL – Schubas
Apr 10 Detroit, MI – El Club
Apr 11 Toronto, ON – Drake Hotel
Apr 12 Montreal, QC – Bar le Ritz PDB
Apr 13 Boston, MA – Great Scott
Apr 14 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
Apr 16 Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade
Apr 17 Washington, DC – U Street Music Hall
Apr 18 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Apr 19 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
Apr 20 Nashville, TN – The Basement
Apr 22 Dallas, TX – Ruins
Apr 23 Houston, TX – Rockefeller’s
Apr 24 Austin, TX – 3TEN ACL Live
Apr 26 Phoenix, AZ – The Rebel Lounge
Apr 27 San Diego, CA – Casbah
Apr 28 Los Angeles, CA – The Moroccan Lounge
Apr 30 San Francisco, CA – Cafe du Nord
May 02 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
May 03 Seattle, WA – Neumos