Forest/Trees

	Forest/Trees EP by John Flansburgh
	First released	July 31, 2023 (IFC) Release details / collectors: Show | Hide	Tracks	8
	Label	Idlewild Recordings	Length	14:49

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See Discography Abbreviations for definition of various terms.

Forest/Trees is an 8-song solo EP by John Flansburgh, and the first solo project put out under his own name. It was released on July 31, 2023 to members of the 2020 Instant Fan Club.

Description

Background

Working cover of In a Very Small Vehicle

A few months into the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-2020, John Flansburgh suggested to John Linnell that the two create solo releases during lockdown for the first time since the '90s. The idea was first announced to the public in August 2020 as part of that year's TMBG Instant Fan Club offering, with Linnell announcing Roman Songs and Flansburgh announcing work on a Mono Puff EP, which would effectively be the first activity from Mono Puff since 1998. In addition to downloads, it was announced that 2020 IFC Super Presidents and Crazy Presidents would receive exclusive 10" vinyl pressings of both EPs.

In October 2020, a likely work-in-progress cover of the Mono Puff EP concept featuring the title In a Very Small Vehicle was posted to TMBG's Tumblr.^[1] Linnell's Roman Songs EP was released in March 2021 to the IFC, with a public release in July. In a May 2021 email to the IFC, Flansburgh's work-in-progress project was referred to for the first and only time as "John Flansburgh’s Drawer Full of Demos EP," dropping the Mono Puff branding.

Work on Flansburgh's solo EP continued into 2022, but progress was halted when John Flansburgh's rideshare was involved in a collision on the way home from the June 8, 2022 TMBG show, the band's first concert since the pandemic had been declared two years earlier. Flansburgh suffered seven broken ribs and spent a few months recovering, after multiple days in the hospital.^[2]

In January 2023, Flansburgh stated in an email he was "closing in on perfection with my Mono Puff assignment." A few months later in May, Flansburgh announced the EP was finished and would be released soon, under his own name:

Happy to report that I have finished my EP’s worth of songs and they are currently getting mastered. I made the project almost entirely on my own, so I’m releasing it under my own name (and not calling it Mono Puff out of respect for the MP crew).

The EP's title was unveiled in email preheader text on June 13, 2023: "A special IFC note from JF: The download of of my EP Forest/Trees is coming momentarily." The title had first appeared twelve years prior in a July 2011 Gothamist interview about the release of Join Us, where Flansburgh mentioned it was a working title for that album:

I came up with a long list of ideas for titles, Linnell had some ideas for titles. Both of us had some ideas that probably seemed really off-the-grid to the other. I've always wanted to title an album "Forest Trees." "Forest/Trees." And, you know, part of it is, the "slash" is such an urban, postmodern construction, and the idea is familiar, and I feel like the title reminds you to listen. Because, the biggest problem with anything in music but especially in music that is somehow familiar, you don't really listen hard enough. And I think what we're always trying to do is rekindle people's actual—try to be persuasive enough to actually get an honest, deep listen out of our audience.

Release

Back cover of Forest/Trees

The EP was released as a download for 2020 IFC members on July 31, 2023, with Super President and Crazy President level members receiving the 10" vinyl EP in November 2023.

While most songs on the EP were unheard by fans prior to its release, a few had been previously teased or heard in other incarnations. The backing track for "Breaking Glass," a David Bowie cover, was put together in 2016 for one of Flansburgh's performances on that year's JoCo Cruise, as part of a tradition on the cruise where guests perform tributes to musicians who had recently passed. "Pon Pon" was written for John Hodgman's FXX animated series Dicktown, specifically a March 2022 episode called "The Mystery of the Adventures of Pon-Pon," which spoofed the Belgian character Tintin. Hodgman and Dicktown co-creator David Rees are credited as co-writers on the song, and the recording in the episode was sung by the character Tucker, voiced by Ronald Peet.^[3] In March 2023, Flansburgh uploaded two clips to Instagram, one day apart, of him singing "No Stopping A Unicorn" into his iPhone as a unicorn Memoji.^[4][5] "Worried Sleep," which was not heard prior to the EP's release, features Chris Anderson on bass, the only other musician who recorded a contribution to the project.

The EP's packaging was designed by Elizabeth Connor, who had previously worked on the 2022 reissue of Mink Car. Former TMBG manager Jamie Kitman provided hand lettering for the cover. In classic TMBG tradition, Flansburgh is credited for the EP's photography under the pseudonym Rolf Conant. The front cover features a photograph of Flansburgh with a printed paper mask covering the top half of his face, and the back cover features vegetation obscuring a 12" vinyl record from the Southern Library of Recorded Music by the Westway Studio Orchestra. In early They Might Be Giants recordings, these records were sampled as background music in tracks such as "Critic Intro," "Kitten Intro" and "Untitled."

Though Linnell's Roman Songs received a public release four months after the initial IFC download, the same has yet to happen for Forest/Trees. In a July 2024 interview with Australian Magazine, John Flansburgh stated he had plans to expand the EP:

I'd like to expand that project to just be something full-length. Like a lot of people who start working at home and then end up working in a studio, it's very hard to know when something's finished when you're working on it at home. [With] the digital experience, you can almost start finishing it as you're starting. You're just thinking, "this will be the final track; this will be the kick drum sound on the recording." You're not making a demo; that's the thing that's a little treacherous about working at home.

Track listing

#	Title	Length	Lyrics	Guitar Tab
1	Arrest The Cigarettes	1:14
2	No Stopping A Unicorn	3:32		N/A
3	No Way To Reach You	1:27
4	For Parts Or Repair (A)	1:54		N/A
5	Worried Sleep	2:10
6	Pon Pon (Demo)	1:23		N/A
7	Breaking Glass	1:56		N/A
8	For Parts Or Repair (B)	1:14		N/A

Image gallery

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  10" EP Side A label

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  10" EP Side B label