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Brace Yourself For Three New Belle And Sebastian EPs

The Glaswegian pop band Belle and Sebastian has slowed its output in recent years: Its most recent album, the spryly poppy Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, came out in early 2015, and that record followed a five-year gap. But a small flood of releases is about to commence, as Belle and Sebastian lets loose with three EPs spread out across three dates: Dec. 8, Jan. 19 and Feb. 26.

Each will bear the title How to Solve Our Human Problems, and to accompany the announcement, Belle and Sebastian is releasing a sweetly lilting new song from the set. "I'll Be Your Pilot" is actually from the second EP, and it finds singer Stuart Murdoch reflecting on parenthood and his young son Denny. With a central metaphor drawn from The Little Prince, it's a chiming little charmer for any freshly minted parent who's trying to figure out what to do with a surge of love and devotion.


How to Solve Our Human Problems comes out Dec. 8 (EP 1), Jan. 19 (EP 2) and Feb. 26 (EP 3) via Matador.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)