Kintsugi marks Death Cab for Cutie's first new release since founding guitarist/keyboardist/producer Chris Walla announced his departure from the band just after completing work on the album. Recorded in Los Angeles with Rich Costey (Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Interpol) behind the board, the album takes its title from the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with precious metals like gold or silver, highlighting cracks rather than hiding them. As such, kintsugi represents a compassionate aesthetic philosophy in which damage and wear are embraced as part of an object's history.
"Considering what we were going through internally, and what a lot of the lyrics are about, it had a great deal of resonance for us — the idea of figuring out how to repair breaks and make them a thing of beauty," says bassist Nick Harmer.
