Listen: Ben Gibbard Posts New Track ‘Ichiro’s Theme’

Ben Gibbard announced - Benjamin, as we should be calling him when it comes to solo ventures - announced last week that he would be releasing a brand new solo album.

Now it seems like we may have our first taste of material, in the form of an ode to Japanese baseball player Ichiro Suzuki.

That’s right. Mr Gibbard has penned ‘Ichiro’s Theme’ and you can have a listen to it below.



Gibbard looks set to release the twelve-track album comprised of solo efforts written throughout his musical career.

Speaking to the website, he gave a short insight into how the tracks accumulated: ‘If people wanted to be dismissive of the record, they could just say “Oh these are leftovers,” but they’re really not. They’re not songs that weren’t good enough to make Death Cab records as much as they were things that … well, there’s not really place on a Death Cab record for a song that sounds like Big Star or Teenage Fanclub.’

Titled ‘Former Lives’, it gets released on the 15th October in the UK and Europe through City Slang, following an American release on the 16th October via Barsuk.

Guest on the record include Jon Wurster, Mark Spencer, and Aimee Mann, and it was recorded with Aaron Espinoza.