Night Shop - Forever Night [CD]

Today, Night Shop (the solo project of Justin Sullivan, who is best known for playing drums for Kevin Morby, in addition to playing with Flat Worms and The Babies) has announced their forthcoming LP, Forever Night. The album features Meg Duffy on guitar (Hand Habits), Jess Williamson, Anna St. Louis + Jarvis Taveniere (Woods/Purple Mountains), and is engineered by Jarvis Taveniere, and co-produced by Justin and Jarvis. Today, they share the record's lead single, "Forever Night," alongside an accompanying music video (directed by Jeff Davenport and Cooper Kenward). Brooklyn Vegan hosted the premiere for both. As Justin explained, "'Forever Night' is a song about feeling grateful and inspired by the pace and lessons of the city and the pace and lessons of getting to experience a life spent playing music. It is a statement of purpose of sorts for this project." Forever Night is the latest album from Night Shop, the songwriting project of Justin Sullivan, and his first full-length album on Dangerbird Records. Before launching the band in 2017, Sullivan's primary musical contributions came from behind the drum kit. A frequent collaborator with Kevin Morby - playing with Morby and Cassie Ramone in The Babies and then performing on Morby's first four studio albums and playing steadily in his touring band until 2016 - Sullivan has also performed live with Waxahatchee, Hand Habits, and Anna St. Louis, and continues to play in LA post-punk outfit Flat Worms. But while those experiences created a musical education of sorts for Sullivan, the genesis of Night Shop was found in stepping away from music for a time. "I lost a good friend and former bandmate under tragic, heartbreaking circumstances," recalls Sullivan. "And I had been missing a lot of life events back home, which culminated in me having a panic attack in a tour van in Portugal. I needed to take myself off the road and tend to my mental health and relationships. I also had to accept that I might not tour again - that I might not be able to sustain that kind of life anymore." That period of retreating from music as a full time affair, working a steady job and addressing his health resulted in a renewal of sorts. "It was really transformative; music became simple again," explains Sullivan. "It was the thing I couldn't wait to do when I got home from work. It allowed me to reconnect with the joy of just creating." It was also the first time he had picked up a guitar with the intention of writing songs. "From my first high school punk band," says Sullivan, "I was always writing lyrics and would sing while playing drums, but I never picked up other instruments. For me, drums felt sort of safe - like the most 'practical trade' or something. A lot of the journey of this project, and me playing music in general, is overcoming shame. Namely the shame that music was something for other, more special people to do.