No joke: Patti Smith’s new single, “April Fool,” is available starting today along with details of her 11th studio album, Banga. Produced by Smith herself and band members Tony Shanahan, Jay Dee Daugherty, and Lenny Kaye, Banga arrives on June 5th — complete with a ballad in tribute to the late Amy Winehouse titled “This Is The Girl,” a birthday song for Johnny Depp (“Nine”), and a track honoring the people of Japan following the catastrophic 2011 tsunami.
“The little song for Amy just blossomed in the studio,” Smith told Uncut back in January. “We were at Electric Lady [Studios] doing a whole other song and I wrote [Winehouse] a little poem when she died and my bass player, Tony Shanahan, wrote a piece of music and the two matched perfectly.”
Other guests on the LP include Television’s Tom Verlaine, Jack Petruzzelli, and her children with the late Fred “Sonic” Smith, Jackson Smith and Jesse Paris. Check out the tracklist below, single artwork above, and “April Fool” here.
Banga Tracklist
01. “Amerigo”
02. “Fuji-san”
03. “April Fool”
04. “This Is The Girl”
05. “Banga”
06. “Maria”
07. “Tarkovsky (The Second Stop is Jupiter)”
08. “Mosaic”
09. “Nine”
10. “Seneca”
11. “Constantine’s Dream”
12. “After The Gold Rush”