Ben Gibbard, David Byrne and Japanese Breakfast on Showing Yoko Ono Love With New Tribute Album

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, who has curated a new Yoko Ono tribute album, “Ocean Child,” says that his first true introduction to Ono’s work came during a crate-digging session 20 years ago.“I found a copy of “Feeling the Space,” in the ‘O’ section of a dusty record store, thinking it would be what I imaged to have been her more challenging avant-garde stuff,” says Gibbard, talking about Ono’s self-produced 1973 album. “But it wasn’t what I expected at all.

Instead, it was beautiful songs, lushly orchestrated, dealing with feminist and Asian identity themes. From then on, I became an advocate for her work, her singing voice and her songwriting — to recontextualize what the narrative around her was, to tell people, respectfully, that they were wrong about Yoko.” With “Outside Child,” he’s sharing that sense of discovery.

Released on Ono’s 89th birthday (Feb. 18), the collection has longtime fans such as David Byrne and Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields), one-time collaborators such as Wayne Coyne’s Flaming Lips and Yo La Tengo, and new school devotees such as Japanese Breakfast’s Michele Zauner and Sharon Van Etten appearing on the Canvasback-Atlantic Records compilation.Although neither Yoko or Sean Ono Lennon were directly involved with the “Ocean Child” project, Gibbard had the blessing of mother and son.In an exclusive message provided to Variety, Ono sends love to the diverse multitude of performers who appear on the project: “Thank you thank you thank you for performing these beautiful new versions of my songs,” she writes. “I feel very blessed and grateful to all the artists involved.”“Sean came up with the title and presented us with the cover image,” says Gibbard.