J Mascis has announced a new solo album called What Do We Do Now. It’s set to land on February 2 via Sub Pop. Lead single ‘Can’t Believe We’re Here’ arrives today alongside a video edited by Adam Bale at Ballad Pictures. Check it out below.
What Do We Do Now was recorded at Mascis’ Bisquiteen studio in Western Massachusetts. The Dinosaur Jr. member recruited Ken Maiuri (of the B-52’s) to play keys and Matthew “Doc” Dunn to perform steel guitar on the record, which follows 2018’s Elastic Days.
“When I’m writing for the band, I’m always trying to think of doing things Lou and Murph would fit into,” Mascis said in a statement. “For myself, I’m thinking more about what I can do with just an acoustic guitar, even for the leads. Of course, this time, I added full drums and electric leads, although the rhythm parts are still all acoustic. Usually, I try to do the solo stuff more simply so I can play it by myself, but I really wanted to add the drums. Once that started, everything else just fell into place. So it ended up sounding a lot more like a band record. I dunno why I did that exactly, but it’s just what happened.”
Of collaborating with Maiuri, he added: “Ken is great, and he plays all the keys. I tried playing some keyboards on the first Fog album, but I’m really only comfortable playing the white notes, so it’s kind of limiting. [laughs] Nowadays, I could just turn the pitch on a mini Mellotron to play different sounds, but black keys just seem hard. For whatever reason, I just like banging on the white ones. Seems like it’s harder to figure out how to stretch your fingers around the other ones.”
What Do We Do Now Cover Artwork:
What Do We Do Now Tracklist:
1. Can’t Believe We’re Here
2. What Do We Do Now
3. Right Behind You
4. You Don’t Understand Me
5. I Can’t Find You
6. Old Friends
7. It’s True
8. Set Me Down
9. Hangin Out
10. End is Gettin Shaky
