First Avenue presents... Improvement Movement w. Jalen Reyes

Date and Time

Friday, Nov 13, 2026 7pm

Location & Parking

Details

Improvement Movement, the social betterment campaign/prog-rock quartet/non-denominational
cult from Atlanta, GA, have made a new record just for you and your modern day malaise. It’s
called Your Perfect Real Life, because, well, there’s a lot going right these days, right? Arriving
August 21, 2026 via ATO Records, Your Perfect Real Life is prismatic, angular, jumpy, and
eccentric. It’s sure to inundate your ears, corporeal form, and spiritual body with equal parts
unadulterated bliss and realist catharsis, or, in other words, as much good as you can
reasonably feel these days.
Set in a world of chaos where the news seems to be perpetually recounting stories of planes
falling out of the sky, urban wildfires, the uncanny nature of a southern snowfall, and schlepping
ads that feel plucked from a sci-fi movie, Your Perfect Real Life makes an earnest case for
embracing life’s relentless unpredictability. Animated by the band’s baroque take on the angular
harmonies of grunge, the record’s eleven tracks sprawl and simmer, enlivened by the
Improvement Movement’s novel employment of dynamics, sticky melodies, four-part harmony,
and a treasure trove of experimental instruments. If you’ve ever found yourself enraptured by
the lush harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the theatrics of early Genesis tracks, or the candid intimacy
of Art Garfunkel, Improvement Movement may be for you.
Improvement Movement is a democracy, and so they say, “things move slow.” That may be true
for the internal machinations of the band, but their output has been quite regular. Each member
of the band, who have largely been eschewing definition, are songwriters and instrumentalists
who have spent the better part of a decade in the fertile DIY scene in Atlanta, GA. In that time
they’ve been swirling, relatively undisrupted, in their own primordial ooze and rubbing elbows
with folks from the no wave, punk, improv, and free jazz scenes. “Atlanta is about as DIY as it
gets,” they say. “We’ve got some of the most killing musicians in the world all spread out on
these kinds of islands of urbanization. There’s always something new.”
That said, the band hasn’t been in Atlanta much lately; they were on the road relentlessly over
the last two years, supporting Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Iron & Wine, Houndmouth, and
Khurangbin. When it came to making a new record, the slog of touring had to be reckoned with.
“It was a gauntlet, trying to live day by day. There was no room for anything with too much
premeditation.”
Playing live that intensely meant inhabiting the music in a new way, with each venue and room
animating and amplifying different energies and dynamics. When it came to making a new
record, the band—composed of Tony Aparo, Clark Hamilton, Marshall Ruffin, and Zach