El Kempner has announced their fifth Palehound album, You Sing Like You’re Joking, arriving February 5 via Polyvinyl. The follow-up to 2023’s Eye on the Bat is led by the quietly devastating track ‘Natural Disasters’, which comes with a video directed by Water From Your Eyes‘ Rachel Brown. Check it out below, and scroll down for the album’s cover art and tracklist.
“My basement is flooding, and your house is burning, and we’re not talking,” Kempner sings on the new single. In a press release, they commented, “I was like, ‘Damn, the future is pretty doomy right now. Why can’t we just get over it and get through this together?’”
“I’ve been a huge fan of Palehound since the first record, so when El asked me to collaborate on a video, I was so honored,” Brown said. “My main focus was to capture the idea of friendship and love as a memory. I think it’s necessary to hold onto the joy you felt with someone, even if they are no longer in your present life, which I think the song paints so beautifully. I also wanted to present the concept of impending societal doom as something subtle and lonely. The gas mask was a direct reference to the nuclear war imagery of the 1960s. We planned the shoot before the forecast started talking about the nor’easter, but I figured that the weather was on theme, so we continued to shoot even with governmental warnings. Strangely enough, the weather was perfectly fine pretty much all day.”
Kempner co-produced the new LP with Julian Fader (Ava Luna) and Katie Von Schleicher (Frankie Cosmos), with contributions from Nick Hakim.
Revisit our inspirations interview with Palehound.
You Sing Like You’re Joking Cover Artwork:
You Sing Like You’re Joking Tracklist:
1. Incisions
2. Hourglass
3. The Midwest
4. Patio
5. Natural Disasters
6. Target
7. Color
8. Sum Of Our Days
9. Sleep Through Anything
