Following the success of last year’s Twelve Nudes, Ezra Furman announces  Sex Education OST, songs from season 1 and 2 of the hit Netflix TV show. The 19-track LP will be released via Bella Union and is available to download and on DSPs this Friday, Jan. 24th, with a physical release on CD and vinyl to follow on April 10th.  To celebrate Furman has shared “Every Feeling”, the standout track from Season 1. “Every Feeling” was inspired by a bad bout of depression: “I was so bored of having these feelings year after year, I just wanted to feel them all and get them over with.” 

When the makers of the hit Netflix series Sex Education told Ezra Furman, “We want you to be the Simon & Garfunkel to our The Graduate”, they clearly recognized a kindred spirit. Who better to articulate all that awkwardness and alienation than Furman?

Sex Education is about Otis Milburn, a socially awkward high school student who lives with his sex therapist mother, Jean (played by Gillian Anderson). Season 1 shows Otis and his friend Maeve Wiley setting up a sex clinic at school to capitalize on his intuitive talent for sex advice. The second season, which is now streaming, follows late bloomer Otis trying to master his newly discovered sexual urges in order to progress with his girlfriend Ola while also juggling his now strained relationship with Maeve. Meanwhile, Moordale Secondary is in the throes of a Chlamydia outbreak, highlighting the need for better sex education at the school. 

The Sex Education Original Soundtrack gathers the original songs  Furman composed for both series alongside some of Furman’s older songs that were played in the show. Lining up alongside older cover versions of LCD Soundsystem’s  “I Can Change”  and Melanie’s“The Good Book” is s a new rendition of “Devil Or Angel”, The Clovers’ doo-wop jewel from 1956. 

Furman and her band recorded the new songs in between sessions for the exhilarating Twelve Nudes, released by Bella Union in 2019. “I decided I’d use the Sex Education project as a place to put my tenderness, my sadness and longing,” she says. “The soft teenage feelings that every adult knows continue long after high school ends.” 

“Making music for a TV show was a new experience for me,” she says. “As a fan of many a high school comedy, for example, The Breakfast Club and 10 Things I Hate About You, I knew how fun the music can be, and also how emotional. I wanted to rise to the challenge.”

For the first series, Furman was supplied with an extensive description of the show and the episode scripts. For the second series, she says, “They trusted us completely. They were like, ‘you know what to do’. I try to imagine what’s going to be on screen as a jumping-off point, but they don’t need songs that fit, they need songs of a high quality, that come from a real place. That’s why they wanted me, I guess. Also, I guess they noticed an exuberant vulnerability. I lay all my feelings out there.”

Given Furman’s personal experience at high school, having been closeted with her gender and sexuality, she wasn’t method-acting for a second. The new songs allowed her to reconnect to that past, but also the present, as teenager and adult. “Amateur”, for example. “I’m an amateur in my heart, and the show is about amateurs,” she says. “About bodies not yet fully formed, and hearts not yet hardened to the world.”

Songwriting, Furman concludes, “is a way of keeping tabs on what I care most about, the purest stuff, the matters of the heart that don’t expire. It’s what matters to teenagers, and revisiting the teenage perspective has been oddly centering for me. It’s a reminder of what’s important, and the emotional dramas that persist through life.”

Furman is currently on a huge US tour running through to the end of February. She then heads to Europe in late April for a number of shows, all dates listed below. 

Ezra Furman Tour Dates:
Tue. Jan 21 – Somerville, MA – Once Somerville
Thu. Jan 23 – Saskatoon, SK – Winteruption Festival
Sat. Jan 25- Edmonton, AB – Winteruption Festival
Sun. Jan 26 – Calgary, AB – Big Winter Classic Festival
Tue. Jan 28 – Somerville, MA – Once Somerville
Sat. Feb 15 – Santa Rosa, CA – Arlene Francis Center
Sun. Feb .16 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Mon. Feb. 17 – Arcata, CA – Richard’s Goat
Tue. Feb. 18 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theatre
Wed. Feb. 19 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile Cafe
Thu. Feb 20 – Boise, ID – Neurolux
Sat. Feb. 22 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
Sun. Feb. 23 – Albuquerque, NM – Sister Bar
Mon. Feb. 24 – El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
Tue. Feb. 25 – Tucson, AZ – 191 Toole
Wed. Feb. 26 – San Diego, CA – The Casbah
Thu. Feb. 27 – Los Angeles, CA – Teregram Ballroom
Tue. Apr. 21 – Lille, FR – L”aeronef
Wed. Apr. 22 – Paris, FR – Cabaret Sauvage
Sat. Apr. 25 – Bologna, IT – Covo Club
Sun. Apr. 26 – Munich, DE – Strom
Mon. Apr. 27 – Frankfurt, DE – Zoom
Tue. Apr. 28 – Prague, CZ – Roxy
Wed. Apr. 29 – Vienna, AT – Arena Wien
Thu. Apr. 30 – Graz, AT – Postgarage
Sat. May. 2 – Leeds, UK – Live At Leeds
Sun. May. 3 – Glasgow, UK – Stag & Dagger
Mon. May. 4 – Birmingham, UK – The Mill
Tue. May. 5 – Brighton, UK – St Georges Church