Art d'Ecco sets fifth album Scheele's Green for October, trailed by The Death of Indie

Art d'Ecco has announced his fifth album, Scheele's Green, due October 23 via Paper Bag Records. The news arrives with a seven-minute opening preview, The Death of Indie, paired with a video directed by Loken Charon that features four performers playing tech company executives.

Director Loken Charon joked that landing his cast for the shoot "took some convincing" despite what he called philosophical differences, with the video's four characters styled as a set of tech-world "Horsemen."

The Canadian artist, whose real name has never been made public, said the pigment that gives the album its title "created this literally toxic society," a status symbol for the wealthy in the 18th century whose arsenic compounds poisoned them from the inside out. He said the same pull toward things that harm us fuels the record's other songs, which he bills as a state of the union touching on climate collapse and the military-industrial complex.

D'Ecco said the album channels "fear and anxiety about AI, and the disruption and uncertainty" the technology has triggered across daily life, including the arts. He assembled a band of Vancouver-based music educators and jazz players, including guitarist Junny Chen, bassist Olivier Leclerc, organist Hayden Cohen, saxophonist Kyler Young and drummer Yato Noukoussi, and spent two months recording at HippoSonic studio with co-producer Eric Shea.

The tracks were cut live in the room, working in unusual textures like tubular bells and a 300-year-old harpsichord. Scheele's Green follows Serene Demon, released last year, and carries 11 tracks, from opener The Death of Indie through Like Trilby, Catch 22, How Real is Real?, The Wolf, the title track, Disappear Here, Break & Enter, Beware of Dog and Darien Gap, closing on Endings for Beginners.

It's the latest addition to the release calendar and our indie coverage.