“What it is at its heart is a smart and lovable collection of songs and tunes.” – Backseat Mafia
PHILADELPHIA (July 20, 2020) – Maps & His Mothball Fleet announces the release of the indie rock album, GULF, on August 21 on Azteca Records. The album elicits feelings amongst a post-pandemic way of life, those where anxiety and hesitation are amplified by distance from family and friends. Matt Wanamaker, the heart behind Maps & His Mothball Fleet, experienced all of these emotions in international isolation while working on a humanitarian aid mission with the Navy.
Wanamaker explains “The album describes the feeling of physical separation I had while away and the distance that I was trying to deal with upon coming home.” The album is called GULF not only because it was written along the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf, but to describe that tangible separation and the ravine of emotional distance that come along with it.
Wanamaker wrote and recorded the vocals, percussion, and some acoustic guitar for a number of songs on a combination of his phone and handheld tape dictation while working overseas in Afghanistan in 2013. When he went back to sea again in 2018 he wrote over 50 more songs alone at night, developing a dozen back home into GULF.
The songs on GULF remain prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded as much as by when it was embellished. These homespun nuances become an honest first-person account hidden by the melodies and stories that Wanamaker managed to produce all alone at night…once again adrift at sea.
GULF Track Listing
- The Pocono Islands
- Bathroom Sink
- Roman Candle
- Moves
- Coastal living
- Horses Are Hard to Draw
- An Emotional Affair
- Visit Mississippi
- Emma Jayne
- I Wanna Know Girls
- All The Lifeguards Known
- Somesylvania
About Maps & His Mothball Fleet
Maps & His Mothball Fleet is the musical moniker of Philadelphia musician Matt Wanamaker. After being deployed to Afghanistan in 2013 and again to the Gulf of Mexico in 2018, he wrote and recorded the rough demos of 50 songs to send back and forth home to musician friends. He released Fighting Season in 2016 on Azteca Records and recorded with the help of Scott Herzog (Dead Milkmen, Disco Biscuits) and Josh Ascalon (Mass Gothic, Chairlift). The upcoming album GULF is due out on Azteca Records later this year. Wanamaker has performed at the Kennedy Center, and the legendary CBGB’s as well as bars all the way from Glasgow, Scotland, to Austin, Texas.
Praise for Maps & His Mothball Fleet
“‘Trust The Teahouse’- a rich and melodic pop composition with confident vocals and lush score.” —Diamond Deposits
“‘Trust The Teahouse’ is a must listen for fans of a Dear Catastrophe Waitress-era Belle & Sebastian.” —Magnet
“Fighting Season is a brilliant folk-pop exploration of human relationships, potent emotions, and the push and pull of a life at war.” —Atwood Magazine
