Dallas-born Roky Erickson To Release First Album Of New Material In 14 Years. And He'll Be Backed By Okkervil River.

By Pete Freedman Tue., Jan. 12 2010 at 12:19 PM

Categories: DFW Music News

Roky Erickson

Wilonsky swears Roky Erickson was born in Dallas, and, hey, that's enough of an excuse for me to pass along this fine little bit of news this morning: For the first time in 14 years, the Father of Psychedelic Rock will release an album of new material. The album, called True Love Cast Out All Evil, will earn an April 20th release (4/20, hehe) on Anti-. Even better, his backing band for this output? Austin's too-cool-for-school Okkervil River.

But, according to the presser announcing the release, it's going to be slightly different fare from Erickson than some may anticipate:

In these songs, Erickson addresses his troubled history in his own words, eschewing the metaphors of earlier songs like "I Walked with a Zombie" to speak directly about hardship and the lessons learned from it. Will Sheff's production highlights the songs while interweaving them with found-sound and archival recordings culled from Erickson's home videos and recordings made in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Should be a pretty good crop, though. In creating thiis album, the presser continues, Okkervil's Sheff was able to help select a tracklisting out of 60 unreleased songs that Erickson brought to the table.

Which is all fine and good. But, c'mon, what happened to the Black Angels?