The reunion of one of music’s most popular side-projects is one that fans have been waiting a decade for, and now it looks like it may actually be happening.
The one (and only) album from The Postal Service, the 2003 collaboration between Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Dntel’s Jimmy Tamborello, Give Up is celebrating its 10th anniversary on February 19th, and a month ahead of it’s landmark celebration, the band’s website has relaunched with naught but a banner reading ‘The Postal Service, 2013’.
Billboard confirms that Sub Pop, the duo’s label, is preparing a deluxe reissue of Give Up next month to commemorate its 10th birthday, while touring plans for the pair are allegedly in the works as well, including three sources stating that The Postal Service are booked to play April’s Coachella, as part of the mammoth lineup for the annual music festival, which has a track record for reuniting big name acts (re: Rage Against The Machine, At The Drive-In)
Additional dates and possibly festivals are also rumoured to be in the works, with the band’s booking agency Billions, recently making their agent page active again, and despite zero activity on The Postal Service front in the last decade, the side-project continues to have a powerful shelf life with music fans.
As SPIN points out, Give Up recently earned Platinum sales status, with around 1,067,087 copies sold in the US to date, which makes The Postal Service album the second-biggest selling in Sub Pop’s 25 year history.
Fans hoping for more than a 10th Anniversary deluxe edition of Give Up, and The Postal Service playing live shows will have to be content that the long-awaited reunion will not involve any new material.
As Ben Gibbard told Spinner in a recent interview promoting his 2012 solo record Former Lives, “There are no plans to make a second record… I can’t say that enough.”Sub Pop, the duo’s label, is preparing a deluxe reissue of Give Up next month to commemorate its 10th birthday
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Gibbard first collaborated with Jimmy Tamborello when the Death Cab For Cutie frontman contributed vocals to the song “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan”, under the producer/songwriter’s Dntel moniker. It eventually led the pair to write a full-length album together, with Tamborello and Gibbard corresponding through the US mail, sending each other vocals and instrumentals, leading to their band moniker.
“I really enjoyed doing that record with Jimmy,” Gibbard says of The Postal Service. “[But] I find that making music in computers involves a lot of mouse time… I don’t have an aesthetic for that. Keeping up on new software technology, I’m not particularly interested in that.”
Gibbard also acknowledges that any new material would struggle to live up to the decade-long expectations and myth-making, “I think people like the idea of a second Postal Service record better than they would like the second Postal Service record.” he says.
“It’s the desire for something one can’t have, the anticipation of possessing something is more fulfilling than actually having something,” Gibbard states, “The door is not closed. But people shouldn’t hold their breath. You’re going to pass out if you do.”
