Tim Heidecker is releasing a new album called Fear of Death on September 25, and has enlisted a crack team of collaborators including Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood, Drew Erickson (Jonathan Wilson, Dawes), The Lemon Twigs’ Brian and Michael D’Addario, and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado. Having already shared the title track, this week he follows it up with a new one called “Nothing”. Heidecker says:
“I wanted to write a religious sounding song about agnosticism. I wrote it a little poppier/jauntier, but working with Natalie and Drew (Erickson), we smoothed it out into something more haunting and (in my opinion ) beautiful. We crammed the session into the end of an overdub day/night, just the three of us doing it live with Natalie adding those incredible angel harmonies over the bridge. Drew and (Jonathan) Rado later added all sorts of goodness to it. The second verse is a very literal description of my experience at the SXSW premiere of Us. I’m pretty proud of this one in general. I hope it delivers some goosebumps.”
To create a religious-sounding but ultimately sardonically hopeless song, you probably couldn’t pick a better combination than Heidecker and Weyes Blood, and “Nothing” bears that out. While “Fear of Death” was a jaunty rocker, “Nothing” takes a more slowed down and – dare we say it – holy approach, built atop pleasant piano ambling while they pontificate about the fact that “there ain’t no place where the angels roam.” The two voices intertwine perfectly to relay this conflicted missive about trying not to fear the infinite void that comes after death, creating something that is perfectly balanced between funny and existentially angsty. “Nothing” is the kind of song you can imagine ourself belting out when you just want to give into your nihilism – but in a fun way.
Tim Heidecker’s new album Fear of Death comes out on September 25 through Spacebomb. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
