{"product_id":"baby-man","title":"Baby Man","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e, the new album by \u003cstrong\u003eFruit Bats\u003c\/strong\u003e, is like nothing else in Grammy-nominated songwriter Eric D. Johnson’s catalog. Little in the arc of his career—including Fruit Bats’ evolution from home recording project to rollicking roadshow, his solo output, and his work with Bonny Light Horseman—points the way to this album, in which his only accompaniment, aside from the occasional blush of synthesizer, is a guitar, banjo, or piano.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSave for producer Thom Monahan, reuniting with Johnson for the first time since Fruit Bats’ 2019 breakthrough \u003cem\u003eGold Past Life\u003c\/em\u003e, it’s just Johnson in the room, meaning that when the turntable’s needle meets \u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e’s groove, it’s just him and the listener, mutually in for a reckoning. Monahan’s return to the booth was vital: having mapped the outer limits of Eric D. Johnson’s musical imagination, nobody was better equipped for the deepest trip yet into his soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e is an intimate album, but rather than deliver a stripped-down or back-to-basics approach to the Fruit Bats sound, its introspection is rendered at epic scale. “It’s minimalist-maximalism,” Johnson says of his and Monahan’s approach. “There are fewer tracks on each song—four or five at most—compared to recent albums where there’d maybe be five tracks on a song just for synths—but this is me at my most hi-fi.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat he and Monahan do to striking effect on \u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e is explore the full power and range of his voice. Pushed forward in the mix, Johnson’s vocals—a showstopping element of his craft—have new purpose and depth on \u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e, breathing life into some of the rawest songs he’s ever written into being, actively finding the heart in the lyrics sometimes just hours after they’d been penned.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA text sent to Monahan one morning—“I’m just trying to write a couple more songs”—later becomes the first line of “Puddle Jumper,” a finger-picked heartbreaker whose only competition for the crown of Most Emotionally Devastating Fruit Bats Song is the other eight Johnson originals on this album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere are no Fruit Bats albums like \u003cem\u003eBaby Man\u003c\/em\u003e. None until this point have demanded this kind of attention. It’s a linchpin in Johnson’s career, one that not only opens Fruit Bats up to a thrilling future but recontextualizes his past, arguing that he is one of his generation’s great singer-songwriters and will be for some time to come.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Merge Records","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":52303887860043,"sku":"R0780-2659","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":52303887892811,"sku":"R0780-4830","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/FruitBats-BabyMan_81d72848-1c44-4a0c-954a-a4c90376117c.jpg?v=1752247993","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/products\/baby-man","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}