Pre-Order 08/05/26 - His Name Is Alive: Mouth By Mouth (CD)

This item is available for pre-order only and will be dispatched on or around its release date (08/05/26)

His Name Is Alive, the long-standing ethereal darkwave project of Michigan musician Warren Defever, announces the repressing of the band’s first three records on 4AD – Livonia, Home Is In Your Head, and Mouth By Mouth – available from 8th May.

Recently reissued in 2024 as part of a quickly sold-out coloured vinyl boxset entitled How Ghosts Affect Relationships: 1990-1993, with audio sourced from the original analogue tapes and remastered by Defever himself, the albums are now each available on Standard Black LP and CD.

His Name Is Alive has a long history with 4ad, signed to the label in 1989, after label founder Ivo Watts-Russell fell in love with their dark and fragmented sonic inclinations via cassette demos sent in the post. While His Name Is Alive’s sound was in line with the gothic echoes of labelmates Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, they also had a different, nonpareil quality, something existing on the boundary of this earth and another realm further underground.

His Name Is Alive’s third record on 4AD, the first where the band controlled all processes including mixing, saw a marked shift; their most diverse, yet accessible catalogue entry. The project’s soaring growth over time allowed Defever to employ an extraordinarily adventuring approach to the record’s sound and vision, indulging his love for all kinds of music, be it tastes of looped dub (‘Lord, Make Me A Channel of Your Peace’, ‘The Homesick Waltz’), sugar-sweet 1960s pop (‘Baby Fish Mouth’, ‘Lip’), distortion-laden dream-gaze (‘Can’t Go Wrong Without You’), evocative alt-noise (‘Sick’), or strummy folk (‘Where Knock Is Open Wide’).

Embracing the surreal and turning their experimentalism up a notch and with Defever’s studio skills truly blossoming, many see this as a high point for the band.

1. Baby Fish Mouth
2. Lip
3. Cornfield
4. In Every Ford
5. Lord, Make Me a Channel Of Your Peace
6. Drinks, Dress, and Ink
7. Where Knock Is Open Wide
8. Can’t Go Wrong Without You
9. Jack Rabbits
10. Sort Of
11. Sick
12. Blue Moon
13. Ear
14. Lemon Ocean
15. The Torso
16. The Dirt Eaters