Particle Kid, aka Micah Nelson, has surprise-released a new EP, Blue Eye, via Hen House Studios. It came about from a pre-gig rehearsal where a jam at a recording studio to get ready for the show became something really special. Featured musicians included renowned guitarist and Producer Daniel Lanois, Buck Meek of Big Thief, Germaine Dunes of Kisser, and longtime Particle Kid bassist Aroyn Day.

Particle Kid says:

There’s an accidental magic that can happen when humans are in the room playing. I felt like I had the X-Men as my band.

It also helps that this pre-show rehearsal took place at Daniel Lanois’ home studio and Nelson had the foresight to have his engineer set up the mics beforehand in case some magic happened.

Nelson had come to know Lanois before this session while working on a full length LP collaboration between the two that’s set for release in early 2027.

Particle Kid explains:

Daniel and I are both deep sea explorers when it comes to writing music and exploring and trying new things, just seeing what we catch down there in the depths.

Blue Eye features creative reworkings of two classic Particle Kid songs: “Drone Love” from his self-titled 2017 album, and “Ring of Smoke” from his 2018 Particle War album with Sunny War. Both albums came out on Hen House Studios, and came about in the creative world of Venice Beach in the early 2010s.

The EP’s title song “Blue Eye” is a new one from Nelson, a song that “came to him in a dream and manifested on a magical couch one day.” Nelson had the idea to release the three songs from this mini session as a teaser for a full length album with Daniel Lanois coming in 2027, titled The Ocean Floor, arriving on Loosegroove Records. So he recruited his old friend Harlan Steinberger of Hen House Studios to put it out. It’s a reflection of Nelson’s “love of collaboration and wild jam sessions.”