En concert le 25 novembre à la Gaïté Lyrique

It’s human nature to romanticize a specific time and place in the past — a moment when everything just felt right, or opportunities were laid out like a banquet. For Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, it’s been impossible to let go of Meriden, N.H., circa 1986: That tiny town is where he spent his childhood (he turned 10 that summer) and where his parents taught at an area boarding school. Meriden is where Sheff’s visions of youth and innocence reside, even as he’s gone on to live in Austin and Brooklyn, and to tour the world. Sheff sets Okkervil River’s seventh album, The Silver Gymnasium, square in the heart of his own childhood; in the specific spot that produced his most sepia-toned memories. As such, the record captures not only his own autobiographical details, but also musical cues from the era.
To complement the release of The Silver Gymnasium, Okkervil River has released an 8-bit adventure video game, an interactive map (created with NPR Music), a video documenting Sheff’s high school bands, footage of him performing in his old high school gym – the inspiration for the album title – and more.
The New York Times reported on a writer’s trip to the small town of Meriden, NH to explore the origins of Okkervil River’s ‘The Silver Gymnasium’ (out today) with frontman Will Sheff. The Times called the album “an aural bildungsroman,” based around Sheff’s small-town childhood in the mid-’80s. Read the story, and go on a Sheff-guided video tour, here: http://nyti.ms/14nk3bz. Read the NY Times story here: http://nyti.ms/14nk3bz