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11​:​11

by Pinegrove

supported by
taylor_wimsey
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taylor_wimsey This album, like every Pinegrove album, has gotten me through some pretty tough times. Evan's lyrics tug at the heartstrings and are so easily relatable. This album in particular is special though, having been made roughly around the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and released at a time when most of us are still dealing with it. A snapshot of a time when the whole world was enduring a collective struggle that reminded us of our humanity. Of humanity's propensity for empathy, but also apathy. Favorite track: Habitat.
Alexander Lanin
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Alexander Lanin hard to follow the excellence of marigold, but this is a nice album nonetheless. Favorite track: Alaska.
Wexel
Wexel thumbnail
Wexel only became familiar with Pinegrove the day this album came out thanks to bandcamp, bought it on a whim due to much love for every iteration of Rough Trade over the years, and wow... have played it at least ten times in the past two days.
Outstanding Favorite track: Orange.
more... more...
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Rough Trade Records and Pinegrove exclusive Deluxe version of the album is pressed on Green color vinyl, featuring a split opening cover, containing an insert and a booklet.

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1.
Habitat 06:55
it’s so still how’d you do that? you settled down my habitat downhill through the speed trap & the agitated aftermath when across the state is gone & dilapidated the wheel froze & it sounded like cymbals the birds exploded off the eve i read my name & i scream like a kettle metabolize the memory when across the state is gone & dilapidated & it feels a little bit empty a riddle of empathy // in the morning i’ll go through the cold but not alone // did i forget my teacher says the precipice the precedent the depressing question of our time of civilwarland in bad decline i want to see the present tense in retrospect a monument been through benthic tides & vandalized before my eyes before i die never forget the t-shirt says with no mask on
2.
Alaska 02:05 video
last month in alaska with the pattern of my life laid out & i asked what i’d been asking you like trees repeat like numerals do like a ladder to the atmosphere the rungs each come again & again & i let it land me down & tether me till i get it when we landed in orlando the local time was 11:11 the pilot had his eyes closed through that opalescent open road & then time spread & expanded the lines fanned out across the land & i let it land me down & tether me till i get it can i leave the canopy forever & land me down eternally
3.
Iodine 05:10
i swallow my pride the animals outside are loving in the humid day light i followed it inside from room to room to try to see if something catches me right but nothing i try can abbreviate the time can alleviate my mind when you get down stay down way down weighed down when you get down stay down way down weighed down then later this week i’ll leak a bit of iodine from my eye like that brilliant video i’m spiraled up inside my iridescent mind is reaching up for something pure & or actual but nothing i try can abbreviate the time can alleviate my mind when you get down stay down way down weighed down when you get down lay down way down weighed down
4.
Orange 04:29
i try to wrap my head around an eye for an eye full of iodine i try to remember the history of time i try to laugh or sleep it off that awful feeling something’s off by eye i measure the narrow length across today the sky is orange & you & i know why i try to warn my senator he said that he invented it & that i should feel happy he talked to me at all i try to down the bluest pill the author of the fucking bill bragging on youtube the criminals he’ll kill they’re trying ignore it we always knew they’d try today the sky is orange & you & i know why
5.
Flora 02:47
i insist it wasn’t always like this i saw the sun saw red in the grass with every fiber vibrating alive so i lie down & lower my eyes until the sun fell low in the yard feeling the territory comin down then i’m out i don’t hear the sound & i know i’m lost wherever i walk now & i’m walkin outside nothing feels good take a blue meander into the woods where nothing’s shining like i feel like it should & the birds sing dissident tunes singing the sadness of the afternoon & all the distance i’m hearing it through then i’m out i don’t hear the sound & i know i’m lost wherever i walk now i’m bowing down now through the flora i’m bending down to the floor now i’m dreaming don’t worry i’m praying now to the forest to the flora to the floor now
6.
Respirate 02:50
in acknowledgement we’re falling back into a dead end routine you recommend i breathe that nothing in this world could unfurl me as completely like a pelican i crash against the wind feeling elegant the trees beneath my feet the confusion rattles me & so i try to take it easy i take it day by day & just do my best to respirate we’re having a hard time now finding a good way out when corona hit i was already feeling pretty out of it frustrated with myself frustrated with my fellows all of them meant well but that does not allow for any of the things that we just talked about the space between the trees the patience that you need for real clarity to reach you so take it day by day & just do your best to respirate you’re having a hard time now finding a good way out well me also but no one’s gonna rescue us no one’ll care if we spend our lives up but i care now i’m not gonna let you down
7.
Let 03:25
i let you down today the day the calendar’s a palindrome with each second reflecting back around now that i know that i let you down no it’s not mine to mourn no it’s just borne of this embarrassment well it’s been bearable but it all compounds now that i know that i let you down now that i know that you changed your mind now that i know you won’t rely on me anymore & i know you can’t confide in me anymore & i know you won’t say hi when you see me around now that i know that i let you down thunder lives under my brain & then the bugs above now circulate so i alternate between the sounds now that i know that i let you down i wanna let these years away i know it’s time we let these leaves turn red but i can’t let this season lead me out now that i know that i let you down now that i know that you changed your mind now that i know you won’t rely on me anymore & i know you can’t confide in me anymore & i know you won’t say hi when you see me around now that i know that i let you down
8.
So What 02:31
but so what? so much so what so overdrawn everyone you meet along suffered an ellipsis & it’s done one day just one not too much now today 11 degrees on september 10 i see what you mean but come on october 13 now with leo gone paterson moves on but not too much your one & only life your one & only mind taking pictures down taking boxes out but so what? tell it like it is or it’s worthless the day don’t mean as much been enough between it to cover it up one day just one not too much your one & only life your one & only night taking pictures down taking boxes out but so what? so what!
9.
Swimming 03:31
swimming as a child down the shore i was blurred under the undertow & crossed into a borderline i divined an image of myself unraveling in patterns & suddenly i’m back on the beach sputtering into the moving trees & birds above & clouds all going on without me they do hallucinate a ladder to the sky i wanna be a part of it i wanna live my life out i turn over & cough into the sand there’s sand in everything & i howl like an animal in the distance i see you running up you’re shaking in relation to everything i turn again sputtering into the moving trees & birds above & clouds all going on without me they do elucidate a letter to the sky i wanna be a part of it i’m not ready to die yet coming up from every part of me i feel it in my skeleton i feel it like a brass key opening an image in my mind i wanna be alive i wanna live my life out
10.
Cyclone 02:57
if it’s better then why am i crying? why am i so struck with grief about this one way things could be? why am i so stuck together? & i fixate on the same cyclone now but how’s that help? how’s that settle anything? & when will it end? cuz it’s been in my head for a long time & it feels wrong & i don’t want it anymore it spun in my head for a long time if it’s better i mean it’s improved not that it’s fine not that i’m mad it’s more that i want to be precise well alright when it visits unbidden in the night & i know i’m gonna cry i know you’re trying to help but i don’t need you right now or ever again cuz you’ve been in my head for a long time & it feels wrong & i don’t want it anymore it spun in my head for a long time get out of my head get out of my mind & it feels wrong it feeEels wrong & i don’t want it anymore it spun in my head for a long time <&
11.
11th Hour 02:18
i dial you at home again i’m happy that you’re in i’m laughing at an afterthought it’s been happening a lot with everything that’s happening though when reality explodes & suddenly we’re sinking & i’m singing & i’m old now what were we talking about now? i keep on losing count i’m laughing & i don’t know why a ripple off the sky the steeple in the green of the clouds seen the other way around contrailing like corduroy then spinning in the ground well that’s the way the season sounds the 11th hour now when coal is cut across the sky in saturated dye in actual emergency now it’s really going down curled up by the fireside the county sleeps tonight

about

Evan Stephens Hall is big on multiple meanings. The leader of Pinegrove titled their sixth album 11:11 because of its layered significance: the numerals gesturing to a row of trees, or striped corduroy; the cornfields of upstate New York, or people shoulder-to-shoulder. But it’s also a special time, a “wink from the universe,” as Hall says, for those who witness it on the clock to wish for something brighter. “Calling the record 11:11 should be a heartening statement, though there's certainly a range of emotion across the album. There's much to be angry about right now, and a lot of grief to metabolize. But hopefully, the loudest notes are of unity, collectivity, and community. I want to open a space for people to feel all these things.”

The album sees the band build on their poetic blend of indie rock, folk, and alt-country, along with Hall’s earnest, open-hearted vocals and his penchant for writing emotionally direct, literate, introspective lyrics. Here, political and socially conscious themes permeate, and as he evolves as an artist, his resolve has only grown stronger – and more purposeful. “I’m encouraged that so many people in my generation are now on board for a change that centers people over profit. And most urgently, I think, in order to durably solve the climate crisis we've got to address capitalism.” The band's latest effort weaves these critiques through an accessible and sensitive work, which manages to be pointed without ever being didactic.

Noted producer and former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla took on mixing duties, while Hall and Pinegrove multi-instrumentalist Sam Skinner co-produced the LP. Hall credits Walla’s impeccably placed arrangement ideas as a vital voice at the table, moving on from the “crisp and contained” production on 2020’s Marigold, to more of a “messier” feel for these new songs. The recording took place at two Hudson Valley facilities – the iconic Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock and The Building in Marlboro – with Skinner and Pinegrove drummer Zack Levine at Hall’s side for the process. Other collaborators in the band's orbit –
Megan Benavente (bass), Josh F. Marre (guitar) and Hall’s father Doug (piano and organ) – contributed in a combination of remote and calculated risk sessions.

The album is introduced with the mini-epic “Habitat.” A robust, textural masterpiece inspired by long drives around upstate New York. Hall says that the dilapidated houses covered in plantlife that spot the landscape have made an intense impression. “It's hard to see that kind of recalibration, but at the same time, there’s a primal irony in seeing nature win against our decaying structures. I drew inspiration from that tension and those brambly textures with Habitat's arrangement.” Hall continues to investigate the natural world on the equally disquieting “Flora” and later, on the elegiac waltz “Orange.” Centering on the climate crisis, the song spreads over the listener like a dream, with Hall’s impassioned, rising vocals producing a near-hallucinatory realization that we may now find ourselves at the end of history. It’s a call to affirm the community working towards a better world and to fight through the cynicism. “These politicians who forget they serve us, they think they're celebrities,” he says. “It’s about the betrayal of the Democratic Party.”

Elsewhere, crushing ballad “Respirate,” urges us to look out for and love each other, while the achingly beautiful “Let” points towards the sad, repetitive loop many of us find ourselves in these days. “Time began to feel less linear, almost palindromic. Two steps forward, two steps back,” he says. On the thunderous "Swimming" Hall spins the scene of perseverance through a near death experience, while a pilot is asleep at the wheel on the brash two-minute banger “Alaska.” The gripping “Cyclone” battles with anguish, friction, and intrusive thoughts through biting guitars and rattling percussion, while Hall describes spaced-out-folk album closer “Eleventh Hour” as “a phone call with a friend that goes to abstract places.”

Pointing towards hope, love, grief, and anger, 11:11 seizes listeners with feelings of warmth, urgency, and soulful beauty – even as it asks some of life’s most difficult questions – through hook-filled songs that bury themselves in the senses and stay there. “The album spends equal time on optimism, community, reaffirming our human duty to look out for one another even in the absence of the people we expect to do those things,” says Hall. “What if we have to be our own salvation?”

credits

released January 28, 2022

2022, Pinegrove under exclusive license to Rough Trade Records Ltd

performed by

Evan Stephens Hall
singing
guitars
some drums & percussion
a synth or two

Zack Levine
drums & percussion

Sam Skinner
guitars
piano
synth
organ
keys
bowed bass strings
accordion on a song
electric bass on 1 & 1/2 songs
triangle

Megan Benavente
electric bass

Joshua F. Marré
guitars
slide guitar
nylon string guitar
processed guitar

with

Doug Hall
piano
organ
synth

Nandi Rose (appearing courtesy of ANTI-)
singing

Sammy Maine
singing on flora

Chris Walla
a handful of guitars
some keyboards
a tambourine

songs by
Evan Stephens Hall
except “let” by Evan Stephens Hall
& Sam Skinner

produced by
Evan Stephens Hall & Sam Skinner

mixed by
Chris Walla
except
“orange” & “11th hour” mixed by
Chris Walla & Sam Skinner

engineered by
Sam Skinner

with additional engineering by:
Evan
Megan
Nandi
Josh
Zack
Chris

mastered by
Joao Carvalho

cover painting by
Evan Stephens Hall

design by
Mira Moore with Evan Stephens Hall

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Pinegrove Montclair, New Jersey

Management:
Tom - tom@castiron-mgmt.com

PR:
US: Michael Krumper <michael@missingpiecegroup.com>

UK:
Jamie Woolgar- jamiewoolgar@roughtraderecords.com, Ben Ayres -benayres@roughtraderecords.com

US booking:
greg.horbal@teamwass.com

International booking (except North & South America): jamesa@freetradeagency.co.uk & ed@freetradeagency.co.uk
... more

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