Bambara have announced a new album, Birthmarks, which will on arrive on March 12, 2025, via Wharf Cat Records in North America and Bella Union in the rest of the world. The follow-up to 2020’s Stray and 2022’s Love on My Mind EP was made in collaboration with co-producer Graham Sutton. Today, the Brooklyn trio have shared a William Hart-directed video for the lead single, ‘Pray to Me’. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.
Discussing the new song, the band’s Reid Bateh said: “A one-eyed man arrives at a country karaoke night with a knife in his pocket and a plan to win over Elena, the object of his obsession. His fantasy unravels when he sees her kissing a stranger at the bar. The music barrels along with a raucous mania mirroring the one-eyed man’s spiraling psyche as it begins to whirl toward a murderous climax.”
Birthmarks features additional instrumentation including sax, trumpet, vibraphone, harp, violin, and viola. Midwife’s Madeline Johnston and Crack Cloud’s Emma Acs also contributed guest vocals.
Reid’s twin brother, drummer Blaze Bateh, added: “Graham was great at pushing us away from old habits, getting us to think of the same moments in a song with completely different lighting, or from different camera angles. We talked a lot about music that puts you in a cinematic space, like Sade and Portishead, and we focused more on the beats than we would in the past. We wanted it to move in a different way; we wanted certain moments to breathe.”
Birthmarks Cover Artwork:
Birthmarks Tracklist:
1. Hiss
2. Letters From Sing Sing
3. Face Of Love
4. Pray To Me
5. Holy Bones
6. Elena’s Dream
7. Because You Asked
8. Dive Shrine
9. Smoke
10. Loretta
