Torres & Fruit Bats – “Married For Love”

Torres & Fruit Bats – “Married For Love”

A little bit ago, Merge co-founder Mac McCaughan suggested that two of his artists — Mackenzie Scott of Torres and Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats — work on something together. That something turned out to be an upcoming six-song collab EP called A Decoration, and before it’s out in August, lead single “Married For Love” is out now.

Here’s what Johnson had to say about the project in a press release:

I’ve been a fan of the music of Torres for a long time, so when Mac suggested it to me, I jumped at the chance. The whole recording process wound up being done totally remotely with each of us on our respective coasts—it was like assembling a cross-continental jigsaw puzzle in the ether.

Mackenzie and I worked on this in a breezy way where all ideas and sounds were fair game. We each brought a few sketches into the initial ideas pile and treated them in a way like we were doing remixes of each other’s songs. There were no wrong answers. The back and forth continued until the music was in a totally different place from where it began.

Sometimes when you do collaborative projects, it ends up just sounding like an amalgam of the two artists. This process assured that the final EP kinda sounds like nothing either of us has ever done—it’s a collection of wishful love chants, patiently unfolding fuzzy loops, danceable ambience, and pleas to the universe.

Scott and Johnson both wrote, produced, mixed, and engineered each song on the EP. “Married For Love” features their harmonious vocals over a spare piano riff and some skittering beats. Listen to it and check out the EP tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “A Decoration”
02 “Still Want More”
03 “The Fox”
04 “Married For Love”
05 “In The Old Style”
06 “Pink Triangle”

A Decoration is out 8/9 via Merge.

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