Mike Gordon Flying Games LP (Sky Blue with Spring Green & Baby Blue Splatter Vinyl)

The sixth solo LP from Mike Gordon, Flying Games is an album of constant and wildly hypnotic movement, each moment animated by unexpected sounds that morph and expand and spin off into their own strange orbits. To create such a mesmerizing body of work, the Vermont-based musician spent long months – including much of 2020's lockdown – writing and recording in his makeshift Megaplum home studio, immersing himself in sonic experiments. As the songs became more fully formed, Gordon brought in contributions from his bandmates, drummer John Kimock, keyboardist Robert Walter, percussionist Craig Myers, and guitarist/pedal-steel player Scott Murawski, all of whom submitted parts from afar which were then woven into the initial tracks. The album was Produced by Gordon, recorded by longtime collaborator Jared Slomoff, and mixed by six-time Grammy-winning engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, The War on Drugs) and reveals entirely new dimensions of the kaleidoscopic musicianship Gordon has displayed as Phish's bassist for the last four decades, the result is a work of both extraordinary vision and daring execution.

In keeping with the eclectic sensibilities that informed past work like 2017's pop-fueled OGOGO and 2020's Noon (a collaborative album made with acoustic guitar luminary Leo Kottke), the new LP imbues elements of everything from disco and dancehall to psych-folk and funk into Gordon's unfettered and expansive breed of rock music.