Your Valentine’s Day just got sweeter. Father John Misty will release a 10th anniversary edition of I Love You, Honeybear, out Feb. 14 via Sub Pop.
Tillman’s beloved second record, which recently landed on Rolling Stone‘s list of The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century, revolved around him meeting and falling in love with his wife, filmmaker-photographer Emma Tillman. It was highly acclaimed and gave the singer-songwriter mainstream fame.
“My ambition,” he said in the original album bio, “aside from making an indulgent, soulful, and epic sound worthy of the subject matter, was to address the sensuality of fear, the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of true intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice. Blammo.”
The anniversary edition of Honeybear will be released as a limited “Loser” edition on pearlescent red vinyl, while a pressing of “Coke Bottle Clear” vinyl will be available in Canada. The reissue will be released as a single LP, whereas the original was only available as a double. Upon its 2015 release, Sub Pop wrote a statement to fans addressing this decision (while apologizing for the unfortunate warping effect some copies had). “Though we all prefer the listening experience of a single piece of vinyl, we decided in this case to prioritize audio quality (an admittedly very subjective determination),” they wrote. “You’re welcome!”
Alongside the new vinyl release is the digital-only collection I Love You, Honeybear Demos, etc., which includes Tillman’s cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.” He originally recorded the rendition for SiriusXM and performed it onstage in Milwaukee in May 2015; Both recordings have been floating around YouTube ever since.
Last fall, Tillman released his sixth album Mahashmashana, which features the seven-minute stunner “Screamland” and “She Cleans Up.” And last summer, he dropped the 17-minute compilation Greatish Hits: I Followed My Dreams and My Dreams Said to Crawl.
Next month, Tillman will kick off a North American tour in support of Mahashmashana, kicking off at the Signal in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Feb. 12. He’ll hit major cities, including Nashville (Feb. 14), the historic Massey Hall in Toronto (Feb. 21), and a pair of New York City dates (Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre on Feb. 25 and Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre on Feb. 26). He’ll head overseas in April.
