The Early

Ars Nova Workshop hosts the record release party for I Want To Be Ready, the latest from Philly-based post-rock experimentalists The Early, at Solar Myth on Sunday, March 1, 2026.

The Early began in northern New Jersey in 2004 as a band of high school buddies coming of age at the apex of indie rock and fixated on the “post-rock” sounds of Do Make Say Think, Jim O’Rourke and Tortoise. Since then the group has had multiple reincarnations, most recently in the two-piece of Alex Lewis (guitars, synthesizers) and Jake Nussbaum (drums, electronics). Reunited in Philadelphia in 2019, Alex and Jake have spent the past six years reinventing their shared musical language, infusing the textural grandeur of post-rock with the communicational intimacy of jazz improvisation and the patient grooves of minimalism and electronica.

The title of their new album, I Want To Be Ready (Island House), draws inspiration from choreographer and dancer Danielle Goldman, whose book by the same name describes improvisation as a state of “readiness” for whatever is to come. The Early’s new music grows out of an honest reckoning with the band’s frustrations for the world: a desire, a humble aspiration to get their shit together for whatever’s ahead.