Out on May 31. Pre-order now.

Czech singer-songwriter, producer and activist Václav Havelka – known mostly as the frontman of the indie rock band Please the Trees – releases his first solo album A Snake Crawling Up a Broken Ladder that marks an important milestone in his artistic journey. It originated during a period marked by severe physical pain when Havelka was reduced to an involuntary stasis and it documents a gradual shift in perspective, from denial to acceptance and from insistence to attentiveness. The album documents a search for a way to cope with problems, not by overcoming them but by listening to what they can teach us about ourselves.

About three years ago, Havelka was fully engaged in multiple projects and managing several jobs at once when a sudden injury and physical block prevented him temporarily from functioning normally in his professional and personal life. After three spinal surgeries when he was confined to bed during his extended convalescence, he began composing songs for his new album, and in their raw original form he recorded them on his iPhone. As such, they form the basis of the album. Yet, despite its deeply personal character, it is hardly a solo project. It is rather based on principles of trust and openness. Early on in the process, Havelka approached a wide range of collaborators among the artists with whom he met during the more than twenty years of his career, giving them free rein to interpret his compositions in their own ways and take them in new directions. The individual songs feature a number of guests from the international alternative scene: James Toth (Wooden Wand), Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance), Marisa Anderson and Matt Swanson(formerly Lambchop), Tony Crow (formerly Lambchop and Silver Jews), Thor Harris (Thor & Friends, Water Damage and formerly Swans an many others), Ondřej Krátký, Rebecca Vera & Munly Jay Munly (Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Munly and the Lupercalians, The Denver Broncos), David Boulter (Tindersticks),Vojtěch Havel, Alois Zatloukal, Tomáš Niesner, Dallas Acid, William Tyler (formerly Lambchop and Silver Jews), Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) and Dana Janssen (Dana Buoy and formerly Akron/Family). The final sound was created by the co-producer and studio engineer Brandon Eggleston who endowed the album with coherence, despite its rich texture and diverse details.