BEING HERE, Litvar's Third Album, Out Now
Frontman Rex Thurstan wrote the record with drummer Joe Lemieux at home in Connecticut.
Litvar has released BEING HERE, the band's third studio album, a collection of story-driven songs shaped by frontman Rex Thurstan's experience of losing his father. The record moves through themes of grief and renewal, built around folk textures including the J-45 acoustic guitar Thurstan used as his primary writing instrument, expanding on the group's indie rock foundation.
Caught halfway between the raw roots of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the sonic experimentation of Wilco, and the electronic soundscapes of Brian Eno and Porter Robinson, Being Here casts the widest net of Litvar's career.
'It's a bare, stripped-back folk record,' Thurstan says, 'but it has a modern touch, too. You can't mistake it for old music, because the landscapes of each song are clearly contemporary.'
Working with drummer and chief collaborator Joe Lemieux, he created those landscapes at home in Connecticut, reaching out to guitarist Violet Falkowski and bassist John Blues McCarthy to help fill the album with melody, mood, and recurring motifs. The result is an intimate album for late nights and early mornings, encompassing everything from the sonic sweep of 'Yeah I Know' and 'Waiting For Something,' upbeat songs that could've appeared on the band's first two releases, to the bare-boned, jazz-inspired shuffle of 'Backstab.' Throughout it all, there's no mistaking the sorrow and struggle that inspired these tracks.
'We went so hard during our first three years as a band,' admits Thurstan, who formed Litvar with Lemieux during the months before the Covid-19 pandemic. The band quickly found an audience with early singles like 'Hi I'm Andy,' but the growth came at a price. 'By the time we were driving back home from LA after recording our second album, Eloquently Aimless,' he adds, 'we were all hitting some life walls.' For Thurstan, those walls felt unscalable. Reeling from the death of his father, he isolated himself for months, taking a break not only from social situations, but from music, too. He later returned to songwriting after buying his dream guitar, a Gibson J-45 acoustic, and dedicating himself to the challenge of turning his personal struggles into universal songs about loss, grief, and the light at the end of the tunnel.
On 'Belong,' Thurstan drives home through darkened streets, uninspired by the daytime hours that have just elapsed. 'I'm trying to feel like I belong here,' he sings, his lonely voice echoing through the stillness. On 'I Hate It Here,' he turns the final words he ever spoke to his father, 'Sure, I'll come by real soon,' into the song's opening lines, painting a melancholic picture that's all too familiar to those who've lost loved ones. 'Backstab' even unfolds like the soundtrack to a lucid dissociation, fueled by slow-motion groove and late-night atmosphere.
The first single, 'What Kind of Man,' finds Thurstan numbing out and navigating an identity crisis over a hook-heavy melody worthy of the Beatles. The song isn't an escape, though; it's a reckoning.
Thurstan wrote and shaped the album at home in Connecticut with drummer and longtime collaborator Joe Lemieux, later bringing in guitarist Violet Falkowski and bassist John Blues McCarthy to round out the arrangements. Litvar formed in the months before the Covid-19 pandemic and built an audience with its early singles.
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