Scorpion

Will Johnson delivers his first solo album in 8 years with Scorpion. He's been busy over the last few years, releasing albums and touring with his band Centro-matic, collaborating with touring with friends in several different bands; Monsters of Folk (with Jim James, M Ward, Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis) New Multitudes (with Jay Farrar, Jim James, Anders Parker), and Overseas (with David Bazan, Matt and Bubba Kadane). He also launched a celebrated art career with paintings of classic baseball players. Scorpion was recorded at the Echo Lab near Denton, TX with Will's long-time Centro-matic band-mate and collaborator Matt Pence. The album features contributions from Scott Danbom (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel, Sarah Jaffe), Howard Draper (Tre Orsi), and Mikey Kapinus (Magnolia Electric Company). Johnson says of the recording sessions, "I constructed most of the songs there on the studio premises. I'd wake up and start writing or working with a set of lyrics, and Pence would show up a couple hours later. Many of the songs were written, recorded and mixed in the course of twelve hours or so. I wanted the session to have an in-the-moment, first instinct kind of feel to it. I also wanted to work with some of the instrumental pieces and more percussive approaches, so Matt and I made sure to focus on some of those elements as we went.