Fleet Foxes have released their new single, “A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen,” which was written exclusively for the upcoming Amazon documentary Wildcat, out Dec. 21, and globally on Prime Video on Dec. 30.
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Featuring Brazilian musician Tim Bernardes, who appeared on the band’s fourth album, Shore, the folk-inspired song, which was recorded in Amsterdam and New York City, was nominated for a Hollywood Music In Media Award for Best Original Song (Documentary Film).
“A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” marks the first song released by the band since Fleet Foxes appeared on Post Malone’s 2022 track “Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol,” and follows the band’s 2020 album Shore and the 2022 physical release of A Very Lonely Solstice, featuring acoustic arrangements of songs spanning their entire catalog.
Wildcat, directed by Melissa Lesh and Trevor Beck Frost and produced by Melissa Lesh, Trevor Beck Frost, Alysa Nahmias, and Joshua Altman, follows the story of a young veteran, played by Harry Turner, who has journeyed into the Amazon where he meets a young woman (Samantha Zwicker) running a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center. There, he begins caring for an orphaned baby ocelot, and his life transforms.
“I was inspired by how the film employed unconventional means to arrive at something universally moving and was struck by all the collisions inherent in the film’s conceit—between species, between hemispheres, between individuals, between the psychological and the natural,” said Fleet Foxes’ vocalist and songwriter Robin Pecknold, in a statement. “In hotel rooms and in borrowed studios, on time stolen from a world tour, I put this song together. It was an honor to be asked to make a song that could serve as an end-cap to this unique and affecting story and to collaborate with Tim [Bernardes] again.”
On Nov. 15, the band will also release the book Wading in Waist-High Water: The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes (Tin House). The book features complete lyrics from 55 Fleet Foxes songs, in addition to notes written by Pecknold on his inspirations and creative processes with an introduction by novelist Brandon Taylor, and an afterword by Pecknold.
Photo: Shervin Lainez
