Out this Friday is Wye Oak’s No Horizon EP, a new collection of songs written for and featuring contributions from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, a renowned ensemble which also counts David Byrne and The National as collaborators. Earlier today, the A.V. Club premiered No Horizon’s final pre-release single “Spitting Image,” describing it as “a lovely and thrilling piece, slowly building from incidental sounds to a billowing swirl of harmonies, the aural equivalent of a sunrise.” Listen now.

Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner on “Spitting Image”:

“Spitting Image” is about trying to manage the sheer volume of information we are expected to absorb to exist. As naturally curious creatures, the idea of seeing everything at once initially sounds intriguing, but of course we quickly reach the limits of what we can consume, and are forced to contend with how little we can actually control.

The song was an attempt to emulate the feeling of emotional and psychological overload as the waves of excess exceed the limit of our capacity to absorb them.

No Horizon is beautiful and strange: distinctly and recognizably Wye Oak, while simultaneously unlike any other of the band’s studio work. Eerie and dreamy, a complicated, unpredictable amalgamation of thoughtful lyrics, steely glints of synths and effects, lithe guitar lines, and the depth of Wasner’s voice, it all unfurls with the ease of any Wye Oak song, built out by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ presence, their tangle of crystalline voices presenting like an orchestral arrangement.

The EP is pressed on 12-inch opaque pink vinyl housed in a printed clear plastic sleeve. Pre-orders of No Horizon are shipping out now from the Merge store; you can also pick it up wherever records are sold.

photo: Lissa Gotwals