There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Wednesday, August 20, 2025.
Florence + the Machine – ‘Everybody Scream’
After announcing their new album Everybody Scream just yesterday, Florence + the Machine have unveiled the epically anthemic title track. We also now know IDLES’ Mark Bowen (who appears in the new video), Aaron Dessner, and Mitski worked with Florence Welch on the record, which is set for release on Halloween.
Scarlet Rae – ‘A World Where She Left Me Out’
Scarlet Rae, the New York-based indie artist recently signed to Bayonet, has shared an ethereal yet very poignant new single called ‘A World Where She Left Me Out’. It’s taken from the upcoming EP No Heavy Goodbyes. “This track opens the EP with a brutally honest dive into early grief,” Rae shared. “I try to capture the strange shift from being someone who craves solitude to fearing it. After a few disturbing experiences, I wrote this song to expose the irony of how people in your life who rush to comfort you may often add a heavier weight on the chaos of pain. This was the first song I wrote after my sister passed, and it ended up becoming a direct, emotionally charged conversation with her. More so, a one sided conversation — full of anger, confusion, and the resentment grief can bring when someone you love leaves you behind in a world so dark and disappointing. Towards the end of the track, as the music strips back, I bluntly speak directly to my sister in the most honest and literal way — ‘I literally don’t know what to do, it’s getting hard to be here without you.’ There is no metaphorical way to put something like that, and I think using the word ‘literally’ in a song is sorta funny and raw. The song is a dark, revealing reality of life, compassion, and betrayal.”
Flock of Dimes – ‘Afraid’
Flock of Dimes has shared ‘Afraid’, a stirring, warmly intimate preview of her forthcoming album The Life You Save. “This song is an intention, an incantation, a prayer. It says: I accept what has happened, but I refuse to let it dictate the outcome of my life. We all enter this world untainted, and our circumstances dictate the weight that we will have to carry throughout the rest of our lives. For some, this weight is far greater than it is for others. This song is a mantra for those who wish to believe that we can transcend the circumstances over which we had no control.”
Beach Bunny – ‘Year of the Optimist’
Beach Bunny have dropped a new single, ‘Year of the Optimist’, which would have fit snugly onto their last album Tunnel Vision. The track may be a refutation of toxic positivity, but the band’s brand of turbulence still has a way of uplifting you.
Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘More’
Carly Rae Jepsen has unveiled ‘More’, a previously unreleased, disco-inflected bonus track from the just-announced 10th-anniversary edition of E•mo•tion. There’s three more unreleased tracks on the album, out October 17, plus remixes of ‘Run Away With Me’ by Kyle Shearer and Rostam.
Sigrid – ‘Fort Knox’
Sigrid has announced her third studio album, There’s Always More That I Could Say, out October 24, with the uplifting ‘Fort Knox’. It follows the earlier single ‘Jellyfish’.
Rocket – ‘Act Like Your Title’
Rocket have not missed with any of the singles from their debut album, R Is for Rocket, and today we get another one, ‘Act Like Your Title’, which is anchored by one hell of a riff. According to singer/bassist Alithea Tuttle, the song “delves into familial relationships and generational traumas… It’s wishing someone would live up to the standards that are set for them but knowing that they will never ‘act like their title.’ Holding out hope that someone will change, especially family, is such a difficult concept and can feel so isolating.”
Snooper – ‘Guard Dog’
Snooper have dropped ‘Guard Dog’, another frantic, discomfiting preview of their forthcoming album Worldwide. “‘Guard Dog’ is about growth,” vocalist Blair Tramel explained. “It’s about the discomfort of feeling too comfortable and recognising when to make a change. It’s about second guessing yourself, overthinking, trust and distrust, and keeping it moving. It’s about losing and gaining perspective, having a voice, and learning how to use it. Mostly though, it’s about having fun – which is the most important thing.”
Automatic – ‘Lazy’
Automatic’s new single doesn’t sound quite lazy, but it is pretty languid by the trio’s standards. The track reflects on the early days of a relationship plagued by self-doubt and manipulation:“The thing you thought you wanted/ Was just the image of control.”
Wyldest – ‘After the Ending’
Wyldest has announced a new album, The Universe Is Loading, arriving November 14 via Hand In Hive. It’s led by the driving, blissful new single ‘After The Ending’, which the singer-songwriter described as “a post-apocalyptic pop song, about sustaining love from one existence to the next; ‘The moment, we lost it / so I’ll find you, after the ending’. It was written with space and time in mind – a scenario whereby a relationship can’t exist in the present reality, perhaps due to life circumstances, timing, or something more extreme, like separation by death – and the promise of finding each other in a different existence where they can be there together.”
WILDES – ‘Without a Heart’
WILDES – the project of Ella Walker, who, like Wyldest, is an Artist Spotlight alumnus – has also unveiled a new song from her forthcoming album All We Do Is Feel. “Of all the album tracks, this probably took the longest to reach its final form,” she said of the emotive ‘Without a Heart’. “It wasn’t an easy song to get out. I really struggled to nail the production on it and, in the end, I completely re-produced it, focusing on the intimacy and fragility of the verses and bringing in the vocoder choir to emulate that robotic coldness I was feeling when I originally wrote it. It’s mournful, inevitable, and has a finality to it for me. I knew once I’d written and produced it, a door would be closed on my heartache, and it was such a relief to finally finish it and feel free from that sort of pain. That makes it all worth it”.
Florence + the Machine have released ‘Everybody Scream’, the first single and title track from the album they announced just yesterday, which is set to arrive on Halloween. The epically anthemic comes paired with a video directed by Autumn de Wilde. Check it out below.
Appearing in the video for ‘Everybody Scream’ is Mark Bowen of IDLES, who worked on the new album, as did Aaron Dessner and Mitski. The record explores themes of “spiritual mysticism, witchcraft, and folk horror” after Florence Welch underwent lifesaving surgery while touring in support of her last album, Dance Fever. (“Everybody dance!” she urges on the chorus of her new song, staying on brand.)
Since 2019’s mildly received (and mildly controversial) Here Comes the Cowboy, Mac DeMarco hasn’t quite shied away from music. He released Five Easy Hot Dogs, an instrumental album inspired by a cross-country road trip, in 2023, the same year he dumped a mind-numbing nine hours’ worth of material onto One Wayne G. He may not have exactly released songs about quitting alcohol and smoking, but it was his way of staying sane while doing, as he puts it on the new song ‘Punishment’, what he’s made to do. But it was about time for DeMarco to release a record like Guitar, an unironically guitar-based and ostensibly straightforward collection of songs that he recorded alone at his home studio in Los Angeles in about two weeks. As breezy and easygoing as it sounds, DeMarco has cultivated his gift for fraying and flexing the edges of his cozily bare-bones sound, both lyrically and vocally. He has a way of coming off both emblematically laidback and somehow unmoored, showing you the way around the wandering heart of his music without ever handing you the key.
1. Shining
Though warmly inviting, DeMarco opens Guitar with an admission of a flawed, wandering heart, not revealing exactly what it’s led him to do. He’s wondering “if the sun’s still shining down on her,” implying his curiosity has left another behind. “All I wanted to be’s gone away now,” he sings, “Gone away now from me.” The smoothness of his falsetto is convincing and humanly imperfect, the tempo naturally languid, drawing out his little escape.
2. Sweeter
The second track is aspirational, with the narrator repeatedly promising it’ll be sweeter this time. Yet DeMarco slyly undercuts the tenderness, switching to a more somber chord as he follows it up with, “Some things never change,” and then, even more unnervingly, “Now, back inside your cage.” He’s addressing himself, of course, with the same line of thinking as the opener, even as DeMarco is quicker to acknowledge it’s “your heart” that’s being broken. Is the pain, on both sides, enough for the singer to change what seems to be innate? His resignation, however obvious, will go away too, though there’s no telling what else he’ll be left with.
3. Phantom
For a song about the lingering echo of a lost love, ‘Phantom’ is cannily the shortest song on the album. “Surely, I was wrong/ Casting spells and singing silly songs,” he sings, as if momentarily underwhelmed by their magic. He’ll get back to it, sure, but in the grip of that feeling, they’re frustratingly weightless. The listener’s left wanting more, too.
4. Nightmare
DeMarco quit smoking about three years ago, and ‘Nightmare’ revisits his old addiction in a cloud of regret. “Had you known that further down that road/ There’d be crying/ Maybe you’d have lessened up your load,” he sings. The chorus is one of the record’s most memorably enchanting.
5. Terror
DeMarco expounds on the nature of his wandering heart, attracted not to some romantic ideal but even the most punishing aspects of the lifestyle he’s chosen, which happens to be the title of the next song: ‘Rock and Roll’. With some noodly guitar chasing the main melody around, he allows himself a bit more vulnerability: what really terrifies him, of course, is death. “All those days of trying to run,” he sings, tying the thread back to the first song, “What a waste of breath.” Guitar often sounds like he’s trying to catch it.
6. Rock and Roll
Stirring echoes of his debut mini-record, Rock and Roll Night Club, the song also captures Guitar‘s strange ambivalence: “Overjoyed/But still can’t help feeling down.” In a similar way, he still pledges his allegiance to the thing he sold his soul for, but it’s got the surreal bent of the past. He languishes in it with a woozy guitar solo, ultimately disassembling it the way a horror score would. The terror and the thrill of it, hand in hand.
7. Home
‘Home’ is less of an interrogation of what the concept means to DeMarco now than what we keep with us once a place ceases feeling like one. In many ways, Guitar is centered around home – that’s where it was recorded, and it sounds homed-in even in its discomforts. Here, though, he is unsettled and alienated by those old streets that have names and faces and memories attached “that I’d sooner let go.” You wonder if the one he’s singing it from will also wear out.
8. Nothing at All
‘Nothing at All’ gets under the skin of pleasant domesticity, exposing how volatile it can be: “It’s always been/ All or nothing at all/ With you baby.” You wish more songs on Guitar dug deeper into these emotional dynamics, which feel like hushed confessions in a thin-walled room. The main riff once again twirls its finger around DeMarco’s voice, unsure whether to agree or protest, and rendering the difference fittingly imperceptible.
9. Punishment
Critics will naturally single out the lines, “I was told that punishment will come to/ Those of us who don’t do what we’re made to,” but it’s worth noting DeMarco sings them in a cadence that suggests he’s not taking himself too seriously. A couple of lyrics later are much more true to his playful spirit: “Take all my blood out and bottle it up/ If you’d like to try a sip, I’ll grab you a cup.” If his music leaves you with as much as a smirk, it suggests, he’ll have followed through. But he still won’t be free from pain, which is why he keeps scratching harder at the wounds.
10. Knockin
The characters on Guitar have their minds and their love all bent, and here the singer regards “freedom that you earned by bending truth.” He wonders what to do with it, but sounds in no rush to answer the door. It’s there, standing by, that old memories, unsent letters, and unanswered questions come rushing in. When you’re feeling low, you don’t know what to do with them, either, but a song can fill the empty space.
11. Holy
With a spring in its step and another languid, mesmerizing lead line, ‘Holy’ makes sense as a single – yet it also stands out, with its odd mysticism and DeMarco swooping low for the titular word. Suddenly freedom feels out of reach, and he’s calling out for a miracle. On the other side of the same coin, he sings of a curse that is eternal and inescapable, and that no amount of going away will cleanse.
12. Rooster
DeMarco has always written autobiographical songs, but he ends Guitar with one that’s most directly reflective of his current day-to-day: “I’ll still rise up with the rooster,” he sings, having recently bought up a farmhouse on an island off the coast of British Columbia. There’s no guarantee he’ll keep living this way for the rest of his days, but he seems to have made peace with the idea of the looming end, so haunting earlier on the album. “Things are looking kinda used up,” he admits, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be sweeter – at least, he assures his darling, he doesn’t bite like he used to. Guitar may sound tame in comparison to some of DeMarco’s earlier, more influential releases, but if you’re a fan, you probably won’t mind. Hopefully you’ve grown up with him.
Carly Rae Jepsen has announced a 10th-anniversary reissue of E•mo•tion, one of the best pop albums of the 2010s. Out October 17, it features six bonus tracks, including remixes of ‘Run Away With Me’ by Kyle Shearer and Rostam, and four previously unreleased tracks: ‘More’, ‘Guardian Angel’, ‘Back of My Heart’, and ‘Lost in Devotion’. The disco-leaning ‘More’ is out today, and you can listen to it below.
Last night, Jepsen performed an E•mo•tion anniversary show at West Hollywood’s Troubadour. Her most recent album, The Loveliest Time, arrived in 2023.
E•MO•TION (10Th Anniversary Edition) Tracklist:
1. Run Away With Me
2. Emotion
3. I Really Like You
4. Gimmie Love
5. All That
6. Boy Problems
7. Making The Most Of The Night
8. Your Type
9. Let’s Get Lost
10. LA Hallucinations
11. Warm Blood
12. When I Needed You
13. Black Heart
14. I Didn’t Just Come Here To Dance
15. Favourite Colour
16. Never Get To Hold You
17. Love Again
18. Cut To The Feeling
19. More
20. Guardian Angel
21. Back Of My Heart
22. Lost In Devotion
23. Run Away With Me (Kyle Shearer Remix)
24. Run Away With Me (Rostam Remix)
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In Overwatch, the gap between victory and defeat is often razor-thin. A step taken in the wrong direction, a push that comes a moment late, or an ultimate released too soon can swing the result before anyone realises. In the chaos of the match, those moments disappear into the noise. Only afterwards, when the replay is running, do they slow down enough to be examined. Across the UK, more and more players are turning to those replays not to celebrate a highlight, but to uncover the subtle issues that have been quietly limiting their performance.
Shaping Skills Beyond the Game
The discipline built through focused replay review often carries into other competitive settings, where pattern recognition and strategic thinking can decide the outcome. Learning this process hones decision-making in any high-stakes environment, whether online or off. From refining tactics in competitive esports to planning moves in strategy games, breaking down decisions sharpens instinct. The same skill applies when weighing options in fast-paced virtual environments.
It’s a way of thinking that can just as easily be used when making informed choices in Online casinos in the UK. Casinos outside GamStop registry may provide a wider selection of games than platforms tied to the self-exclusion scheme. Many also allow more flexible deposit and withdrawal limits, letting players handle their activity in ways that match their own approach. Some offer welcome packages or ongoing bonuses that enhance the initial sessions, while others include loyalty programs to reward consistent participation.
This reflective approach thrives on detail, slowing the pace so each part of a decision can be seen clearly. It builds habits that prioritise observation before action, helping to avoid rushed or careless moves. By the time the next challenge arrives, those refined instincts are ready to guide every step.
Replay Analysis Transforms Perception Into Clarity
A replay changes the pace entirely. The clock’s urgency is gone, replaced by time to trace each decision’s path. Watching again, small mistakes that seemed harmless at the time stand out clearly. A support caught out of position during a push.
Coaches spot these moments instantly. A damage dealer holding an angle too long. In real time, these slip by unnoticed; on replay, they stay fixed in view. That slower, quieter perspective turns vague frustration into something concrete—a specific choice, at a specific moment, that can be changed next time.
Pattern Recognition Forms the Path Forward
One error alone can be dismissed as bad luck. But when it repeats across matches, it becomes habit. Replays make these patterns impossible to miss.
Maybe it’s using abilities too early in a fight, or moving into space without checking sightlines. Once recognised, they’re hard to forget. They influence how we move, when we engage, and what options we take the next time.
Structured Self-Review Builds Lasting Growth
The biggest gains come when replay study becomes part of the routine. Taking a few minutes after each session to focus on one detail keeps progress manageable. It’s not about fixing everything at once; it’s about steadily replacing weaker habits with stronger ones. Over time, the lessons from review surface naturally during live play.
That steady rhythm of reviewing, adjusting, and testing again builds real control over improvement. It mirrors what a coach might set out, but because it grows from within, it shapes a style that is sharper, more adaptable, and ready for whatever comes next.
Toxic Commando unveiled its gameplay, a new trailer, and launch period at the recently concluded Gamescom’s Opening Night Live. The reveal marks the first major update since its initial tease two years ago, reigniting the hype surrounding John Carpenter’s upcoming game.
In line with this, the project is a partnership between Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive. Similarly, Focus Entertainment reports that Toxic Commando will be using Saber’s Swarm Engine. It is the same technology that powered Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and World War Z: Aftermath. Players can also look forward to full cross-platform cooperative play, letting gamers team up across consoles and PCs.
John Carpenter’s Take on the End of the World
Created by legendary director and writer John Carpenter, the game echoes the horror and humor that defined his classic films during the 1980s. That influence is visible in the premise of Toxic Commando: A bold and risky experiment to extract power from the Earth’s core goes wrong. The mistake turns the ground into rot and people into the undead. However, the person behind the experiment thought of a plan to end the disaster. He wanted to hire the best mercenaries to destroy the monsters. Unfortunately, he did not have enough money, so he settled for a group of misfits known as the Toxic Commando.
Explosive Zombie Carnage and Vehicular Mayhem
In this co-op first-person shooter, players can form a squad of up to four members. Each player can select their own character and choose a class to match a preferred playstyle. At the same time, the team can work together to unleash chaos with everything at their disposal. In particular, the group can utilize heavy firearms, grenades, katanas, and special abilities. Likewise, players will get the chance to hop on survival rigs. These vehicles would be essential to handle off-road driving through slime-corrupted terrain in a post-apocalyptic environment.
The main mission of the Squad is to destroy all terrifying creatures before they infect the entire human race and take over the world. It will not be an easy fight as they need to battle hordes and bosses, whether on foot or behind the wheel. Ultimately, players are supposed to defeat the monstrous Sludge God itself and send it back to the underworld.
What the Trailer Shows
The official trailer delivers a buddy movie vibe with Carpenter’s signature horror twist. From stunning graphics to striking gameplay, the game promises the ultimate experience where players are pitted against impossible odds to save the planet.
Focus Entertainment announces that John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando drops in early 2026. For now, players can add the game to their wishlist on PlayStation 5, Epic Games, Steam, and Xbox Series X|S.
There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
bar italia – ‘Fundraiser’
London trio bar italia have announced their new album, Some Like It Hot, with the strikingly immediate ‘Fundraiser’. It comes paired with a music video starring British actor and comedian Matt King (Peep Show, Bronson).
claire rousay – ‘just (feat. m sage)’
claire rousay has announced a new album, a little death, which is part of a trilogy that includes 2020’s a heavenly touch and 2021’s a softer focus (around which we ran an Artist Spotlight interview). It also follows last year’s sentiment, which “was a different way of working that helped refresh my music-making habits and usual flow,” according to the artist. “This record is a return to what I see as my core solo practice, a re-dedication to those methods of working which I’ve found most align with what I envision my music or sound to be.” The lead single, which features Colorado ambient musician M. Sage, gently invites us back into that intimately atmospheric world.
Westerman – ‘Adriatic’
Westerman has announced A Jackal’s Wedding, his first album since moving to Greece – or, as he put it in a statement about the swirling lead single ‘Adriatic’, “failing at moving to Greece.” The singer-songwriter elaborated: “I was trying to break outside of the confines of my immediate physical reality. Life is full of practical limitations in terms of having a body, or what you can afford in terms of money, etc. but you can always go to a place in your head where everything is possible, and the song is a celebration of reclaiming that. I hadn’t written anything for a long time. I got very depressed after my first record, the whole experience was just so bad that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to make music anymore. Writing this song was taking back ownership of that creative space which is just my thing and it’s powerful. There are periods in everybody’s life where they feel like maybe they don’t have any control over anything. It’s the realization that there’s a part of you that they can’t get to unless you allow for it, and you can always keep that space, even if it’s buried, it doesn’t go away as long as you remember that it’s there.”
Wednesday – ‘Bitter Everyday’
“The sweetest parts of life keep getting bitter every day,” Karly Hartzman sings over acoustic guitar in the final moments of ‘Bitter Everyday’, though the rest of the song might be the stormiest Wednesday have released from their forthcoming LP Bleeds. “‘Bitter Everyday’ is a song formed around my desperate desire to tell the story about how, in 2019, this lady came up on our porch at like 3 in the morning when Jake and our friend Andrew were out there drinking and playing guitar,” Hartzman explained. “She asked them if she could sing them a song she had written, she had an incredible voice. They recorded a voice note of it and showed it to me the next morning when I woke up. I knew which lady it was, she was a houseless person who walked around the downtown area a lot. Weeks later, I was walking home from work and I saw a photo of her on a telephone pole. It was an old mug shot of her, and she was done up in juggalo makeup. The description on the paper said she was wanted for murder. The chorus is an homage to Iris DeMent’s song ‘Easy’s Gettin’ Harder Everyday.’”
Jeff Tweedy – ‘Feel Free’
Jeff Tweedy first previewed his upcoming triple album Twilight Override with four new songs, and today we get another one, the breezy ‘Feel Free’. “The freedom I’m talking about in this song comes in both small doses and large doses,” Tweedy explained. “It arrives at me, at the most free I feel in my life. Which is making a record with my friends and singing a song that I feel like is a part of the past, present and future.”
Mac DeMarco – ‘Phantom’
The freewheeling energy of that Jeff Tweedy song sounds a lot like Mac DeMarco’s new album Guitar, of which we get one last preview today with ‘Phantom’. It opens with the lines, “Sure, I’d give it up/ Just for one more chance to say goodnight/ Oh, my love, was it real or just fantasy?/ Your phantom sits with me.”
Nation of Language – ‘In Your Head’
Nation of Language’s new song ‘In Your Head’, from their forthcoming Dance Called Memory, starts out in a more shadowy fashion than most of their singles, subtly expanding over the course of five minutes. It follows previous cuts ‘Inept Apolla’, ‘I’m Not Ready For Change’, and ‘Under the Water’.
Spiritual Cramp – ‘Young Offenders’
Spirital Cramp have served up a new single from their forthcoming record Rude. ‘Young Offenders’ is absolutely anthemic, and it comes paired with a music video directed by Sean Stout.
They Are Gutting a Body of Water – ‘the chase’
They Are Gutting a Body of Water have shared a blistering new single, ‘the chase’, from their upcoming album LOTTO. Though dreamlike, the lyrics are an autobiographical account of relapse. “I woke up that morning rapidly nose-diving into fentanyl withdrawal, and recognized the light in Emily’s face,” frontman Douglas Dulgarian revealed. “I became aware of the same fact that has presented itself in my life countless times, what becomes the very mission statement of the record: living in truth is a practice, and it’s never too late to get real again.”
Ratboys – ‘Joseph’ (Bad Bad Hats Cover)
Minneapolis duo Bad Bad Hats are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album, Psychic Reader, with a tribute LP featuring remixes and covers. One of them is a lovely cover of ‘Joseph’ by Chicago’s Ratboys. “What a treat to rediscover ‘Joseph’ through Ratboys, one of the great live bands of our indie era,” Bad Bad Hats’ Kerry Alexander commented. “‘Joseph’ was one of the first truly collaborative Bad Bad Hats songs: Chris wrote the instrumental and I wrote the melody and lyrics on top of it. In their cover, I love how you can also hear the sum of the Ratboys’ parts: Dave’s distinct guitar-shredding, Julia’s iconic voice, etc. And who is Joseph? I’ll never tell.”
Public Opinion – ‘Laughing Academy’ [feat. Drug Church’s Pat Kindlon]
Public Opinion have announced a three-song EP called Perpetual Motion Machine, which arrives September 8. Drug Church’s Pat Kindlon appears on its first single, ‘Laughing Academy’, which is accompanied by a Jarrett Barnes-directed video.
Shallowater – ‘Sadie’
Houston-based band Shallowater have previewed their upcoming album, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars, with a brooding track called ‘Sadie’. “Growing up in West Texas brings a lot of weather-related anxieties,” the trio told FLOOD. “Lubbock was completely leveled by a tornado in the ’70s, and the thought of that happening again kept me up many nights when I was a kid. I know tornadoes are pretty cliché, but telling us not to write about them would be like telling someone in California not to write about the ocean.”
Hand Habits – ‘Bluebird of Happiness’
Ahead of the release of their new album Blue Reminder, Hand Habits has today shared its final single. ”One day my partner asked what birdsong we were hearing through the window and I was like, ’well that’s the bluebird of happiness obviously,’ and it became a joke song I would sing around the house, but then it grew wings,” Meg Duffy explained. “I also got curious about the history of the bluebird of happiness, and found that it has mythological significance. It’s interesting how a symbol like that functions subconsciously, or in the collective unconscious. Even when we might not know everything about its origins, or when it’s almost become a pop cliche, maybe there’s some essence or a through-line that can remain true. Or the cliche itself can become material to play with. And I think because I can have an aversion to sentimentality in my songwriting, it felt exciting and fun to go there. And it does feel like such a hopeful song to me, though this bluebird has definitely seen some things, which is reflected in the production too.”
Makaya McCraven – ‘Technology’, ‘Choo Choo’, ‘Away’, and ‘Imafan’
Makaya McCraven has announced he will follow 2022’s In These Times with four new EPs: Techno Logic, The People’s Mixtape, Hidden Out!, and PopUp Shop, which will all be out October 31. The jazz drummer and producer has shared a track from each release; though they’re built from different live recordings, they are similarly exploratory and mesmeric.
Good Flying Birds – ‘Fall Away’ [feat. Wishy’s Nina Pitchkites & Kevin Krauter]
Good Flying Birds, an Indianapolis band that has toured with Ducks Ltd. (though they evidently prioritize quality over quantity – of birds, that is), have shared a new single featuring Wishy’s Nina Pitchkites and Kevin Krauter. You should expect a healthy mix of jangliness and noise hearing those names, and ‘Fall Away’ does not disappoint. “I recorded an iphone voice memo sitting in bed, singing and strumming an unplugged electric guitar, the usual,” the band’s Kellen Baker recalled. “Sent it to my friend (now roommate) Kevin Krauter to see if he’d be interested in working together on it, figured we’d start from scratch and maybe rearrange some things. He sends back my voice memo with fully tracked drums a day later, played immaculately. He’s a savant. Started going over to his parent’s house in Carmel and built it up from that drum track, he recorded while i played in the corner of the basement over a couple days, broken up by listening to records, sitting in a hot tub, and watching Trances (documentary about nass el ghiwane) and Next (a crazy 2000s dating show). Later I had Nina Pitchkites (my friend and neighbor) come over and track some vocals in my bedroom, she knocked it out right away, she has an amazing voice. My friend Demi Jo was working on the music video for ‘Down On Me’ at the same time in the same room.”
Jim White – ‘Inner Day’
Jim White has announced a new album, Inner Day, out October 24, sharing the meditative title track. While he’s a storied percussionist, this marks his debut as both a lyricist and vocalist, though you couldn’t necessarily tell. “’Inner Day’ is about veils and how the unconscious doesn’t follow the waking person’s clock,” White explained. “It doesn’t follow the external so-called laws of temporality and causality. Do you?”
Paz Lenchantin – ‘Hang Tough’
Paz Lenchantin, former bassist of Pixies and A Perfect Circle, has announced her debut solo album, which is called Triste. Before its October 17 release, she’s shared the cinematic lead single, ‘Hang Tough’, featuring drummer Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, ex-Foo Fighters), guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age), and musician Jeffertiti (Father John Misty).
Greg Freeman – ‘Salesman’
Ahead of its release on Friday, Greg Freeman has shared a vibrant new single from his upcoming album Burnover. “‘Salesman’ is technically a serious song about something sad, but also one of the more upbeat songs on the album,” he explained. “It’s also the only one we recorded pretty much fully live, and with my touring band.”
Double Wish – ‘Riptide’
Orange County duo Double Wish will release their debut self-titled album on Friday, and today they’ve offered one last preview, the aqueous ‘Riptide’. “‘Riptide’ was inspired by our personal experiences with surfing and time spent in the ocean,” Adam Sabolick and Philippe Andre commented. “How something sublime can be so beautiful and refreshing, but also dangerous and unpredictable. The ocean is a bit of a metaphor here for the challenges of facing uncertainty, and the emotional forces that can pull you down. Surrender, survival and acceptance. Taking risks, getting knocked down, but trying again.”
Case Oats is a Chicago-based band led by Casey Gomez Walker, who never thought she’d write songs when she was in school for creative writing. Before Case Oats – rounded out by Spencer Tweedy on drums, Max Subar on guitar and pedal steel, Jason Ashworth on bass, Scott Daniel on fiddle, and Nolan Chin on piano and organ – Gomez Walker had played in a garage rock band, but this project could serve as a vessel for the kinds of poems and short stories she’d been left with after college. She posted the first Case Oats track, ‘Bluff’, just a day after tracking it with Tweedy, whom she’d been dating for about six months. The band recorded their debut album, Last Missouri Exit, out Friday, after months of playing its songs on the road, which is evident in their buoyant, easygoing confidence. It’s named after a sign on the freeway to Chicago from Gomez Walker’s hometown that, one day, signalled the end of childhood for her. So Last Missouri Exit is a record of early adulthood, but a uniquely incisive and generous one at that, harbouring tenderness for the roughest parts of ourselves that surface in those transitional moments. Seeing it in her friends and bandmates first, Gomez Walker sings with the warmth of knowing the rest of the world will relate.
We caught up with Case Oats’ Casey Gomez Walker and Spencer Tweedy for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight series to talk about how the band got together, Walker’s creative writing background, their recording process, and more.
The last song on the record, ‘Bluff’, is actually the first one that you got together to record. What do you remember about that day?
Casey Gomez Walker: I wrote it alone in my bedroom, and I hadn’t sat down and written a song start to finish with the guitar before. I didn’t really know what I was doing at all, and that’s just what came out. Spencer was still in college, and he had a studio up in Appleton, Wisconsin, and I knew I was going to visit him that weekend. We had been dating, but not for super long. I texted Spencer, and I asked him if, on one of the days when I was there, he’d be down to record something together. And that’s what we did. The Sunday I was there, we went in, and we just tracked it. We changed a couple of the lyrics, but kept pretty much everything exactly as it was. Spencer sang some background vocals, and I think the next day, I put it out on Bandcamp. I was just so excited to have a song.
Were you anxious at any point before putting it out?
CGW: No. [laughs] I’d never done anything like it before. I think I was just excited. I wasn’t trying to be a musician or make music, or make it with music. At that point, it was a very side thing and something that I was very newly getting into. So anything that I was doing with it that sounded okay, I was excited about.
What excited you, Spencer, about that session?
Spencer Tweedy: The sweetness of the song, but also its unique poetic identity. Because it starts out with the line, “Sorry I talked about hockey too much,” and I remember being so struck by that. Like, what kind of a way is that to start a song? [laughs] And it’s so Casey. It’s not necessarily a completely autobiographical song, but that line is true to self, being into hockey literally, but also the notion of starting off on that foot of an anxious love or something. I liked the chords, I liked the instruments of it. I was just excited to record.
Do you mind sharing how the two of you met and maybe your first impressions of each other at the time?
CGW: Yeah. I slid into Spencer’s DMs on Instagram. [laughs] I reacted to a selfie that he had posted on his story when stories were first a thing, and then he messaged back with a wave emoji. We just started talking. I was in Saint Louis, and he was in LA. We were not in the same place at the same time, but we both were on vacation, and the soonest he could hang out was on New Year’s Eve. He asked me if I wanted to, and I was like, “Sure, why not?” And we planned a date on New Year’s Eve. We went out to dinner and then hung out with my friends at the time, and it was great. It was very easy from the first moment. I was anxious and excited and nervous, but it definitely felt very normal right away.
ST: Yeah. And I should say, our version of “slid into DMs” is simply a heart emoji.
CGW: Yeah, I didn’t say anything sleazy. [laughs] That was back in the day when all you could reply to with Instagram stories besides texting something was a heart.
ST: That would actually send some big old heart icon. But then at some point, weeks into our relationship, Casey was like, “You probably got messages like that all the time, right?” And I was like, “No. Just you.” And I saw it, and I was like, “I wanna talk to this person.” So, yeah, we met up on New Year’s Eve, and it started right there.
CGW: We spent the next twenty-four hours together, and there was not really any question.
Before recording ‘Bluff’, had you been thinking about writing songs for a while?
CGW: I’d been thinking about writing songs for a while. I mean, I was always writing. I didn’t necessarily think that everything I was writing was a song or was meant to be a song, but I was playing a lot of music with my best friend, Luke, and we were trying to do more of a garage rock thing. I had built a bit of that muscle, but I hadn’t written anything alone by myself that felt like totally me.
I know you had just finished school for creative writing. Did it feel like building a different kind of muscle, fitting your ideas into songs?
CGW: Yeah, I graduated from creative writing school back in 2016, not long after I started writing songs for the album. I think it was an easy transition. I was already writing poetry and short-form stuff. Figuring out ways to write a story that was with the least amount of words possible was always interesting to me. Something very sparse. And I just hadn’t really made the connection totally that that was songwriting, even when I was in writing school. I’m not thinking about it in the forefront of my brain when I’m songwriting, but I think there are elements of how to write a scene and how things take place and what’s the most important thing to focus on that are definitely in my head. It was just easy to start songwriting because I had spent so much time thinking about what makes a story, whether that’s autobiographical or fiction.
Do you feel like you need to have a different, more personal connection to a story, knowing you’ll be singing it?
CGW: I think it just made me feel closer to it. Something I loved in creative writing school was when we got to read our pieces out loud, because everything I’ve always written is very autobiographical. A lot of what I was writing in college was also a little bit fictionalized, but it still is very true to me and usually about something that had happened to me, something I knew. I was writing what I knew; same thing with songwriting. I think there’s a bit of a catharsis with reading work out loud, so I think that singing songs has always felt like the best thing because it’s a form of oral storytelling that is such an important thing to humans in general. It was this very innate connection.
Spencer, you mentioned the sweetness – what else struck you about seeing Casey’s songs in their earlier stages?
ST: I think that there’s a lot of pain around relationships that never sounds like whining, and there’s an ethics about relationships, or even more broadly, about living life in a general sense. It’s done with a really light touch and with zero pretension, so you don’t even know that you’re being presented with a model or a philosophy about what’s right and good ways to spend your time. There’s great use of imagery. Casey was talking about scenes – I think about images, like in the song ‘Tennessee’, of braiding your sister’s hair. A small human moment like that, to me, says a lot because it says a lot about the relationship with your sister. There are a lot of moments of mistreatment or people behaving badly toward each other, and the way that those stories are presented is never ham-fisted. I think that’s a hard thing to pull off.
I was thinking of the song ‘Hallelujah’. There’s a bitterness and a spikiness to the song, even musically, but then it becomes a lot more about empathy.
ST: Yeah, and look how, musically and lyrically, the chorus turns toward just having each other. That’s pretty optimistic.
CGW: Yeah. And that song came from a very angry place, but, obviously, not about myself. It was about my sister and my best friend who had both just gotten out of horrible relationships, and it’s just a feeling of relief. You have some people that love you, and there are so many wonderful things. It’s like, “Thank god you’re not stuck with this horribleness.” [laughs] It literally felt like a feeling of hallelujah. And I’m not a religious person.
ST: Belief?
CGW: Yeah.
The story goes that you bluffed your way into playing your first show, saying you had a band when you didn’t. I’m curious how it was this specific group of people that became Case Oats.
CGW: The first show that we played was a different lineup of players, and it just evolved. Our two really good friends, Max and Jason, our bass player and our guitar player, play in a lot of different bands. They live close to us and lived close to us at the time, and I was wanting to do a Halloween cover set of Creedence Clearwater Revival. I just asked them to do that with me, and that was the first time I had played with them. Honestly, for what it was, it was a great set. And from then on, it was like, “Do you guys want to play actual shows with me?” Max and Jason are best friends with each other and were roommates at the time, and they have a very special way of bouncing off each other when they’re playing.
ST: They went to high school together.
CGW: But also, just listening as players and being really mindful of the song and figuring out where they fit in. They wrote all of their parts to the songs on the record, and there was never any question about what they did. It was just like, “Yeah, of course. That’s what sounds good.” And they’re our best friends, truly. It’s such a special thing to be able to play music with your best friends. And then Scott Daniel, who is our fiddle player, didn’t originally play with us our first few shows, but I saw Scott playing with our friend, Sarah Weddle, and the way that they fit in the music and were able to sit on top of songs, I was like, “Oh my god.,I would love to play with Scott.” I was also imagining a fiddle on the songs already, so I asked Scott to play with us, and they agreed. They’re a fun hang and fit in well with all of us. And, of course, Spencer, drumming, and helping songwrite and coming with his own touch to it.
I understand part of what made it feel easy when you went in to record was just the fact that you’d been playing shows together. Were there songs that you maybe weren’t sure would work, or how to get them to work?
CGW: That’s a good question. I don’t think, when we initially tracked all the guitar and bass and drums that one weekend, there was much of a question. It was all songs we had played live. We played them exactly as we had played live. Maybe ‘In a Bungalow’ was new at that point when we recorded it, but it fit in with everything else, and it was easy. I think maybe when we then later recorded vocals, the only song that was different is ‘Nora’, because when we play it live, we sing it differently because we sing it all together. And when Spencer and I were recording the vocals for that, it just didn’t work, so that took a different form for the record, which is my vocals overlapping with each other rather than just saying it on repeat. I think we’ll always play it live in the original form, but it’s different on the record. I think everything else was very lived-in. And then adding the fiddle and the pedal seal and the organ and piano on top of it was very much just like, “How does this fit in?” rather than “Will it work?”
What about the pulse of the song? Were you prone to slowing things down or speeding things up, or was that also pretty much locked in?
ST: I feel like we were really relaxed. We did maybe three or four live takes of each song to make sure we got it. And we didn’t even listen to anything or go back and pick one in the moment. We just ran through everything just about that many times. I remember, when Casey and I were opening up the basic tracks that we did with the whole band later to start adding vocals and things, feeling really proud and relieved that the tracks sounded so stable and assured. I mean, I’m not surprised because everyone in the group is really experienced and has been playing a long time and has really good musicianship. I think a great example is listening to ‘Wishing Stone’ and just feeling how completely settled everybody is in the tempo that we picked. Not every group can do that because a lot of people just feel rambunctious, especially when you’re recording, and that makes people feel nervous. Particularly between me and Jason, the bass player, but also Max and Casey, everyone who is involved in the original tracking – there’s just a lot of unspoken assuredness. We didn’t have to discuss tempos or anything. We just clicked into it.
If there’s one song that had to sound settled and assured, it would be ‘Wishing Stone’. There’s a line on it, “Love you more than my need to roam,” that made me think about your relationship to home, which is something that ‘In a Bungalow’ also touches on.
CGW: I’ve always had such a sense of home, luckily. It’s the thing I’m most grateful for, whether that home was in Saint Louis with my parents or in Chicago at the time in the apartment that I wrote that in. Thinking of people as home, and that being a love song, thinking of Spencer, thinking of very close friends who are soulmates to me. I’m never going to leave it, is kind of how I feel. Whatever happens, no matter how difficult life gets or difficult I get – it’s no question.
ST: I like that the line you pointed out acknowledges that both things exist, the need to roam and your love for someone. You can end up automatically thinking that any presence of one or the other means the other must cease existing, and it’s not really about one completely overtaking the other; they both exist, whether you like it or not. It strikes me as way more productive and honest to just answer the question of, where’s the balance? Which one is winning right now? Or, how do we navigate both of them without pretending like I’m all of a sudden an incurious or stationary person?
Can you tell me more about that need to roam?
CGW: I think it’s more just the idea of exploration of life that’s so broad, but it’s not necessarily about travel. I mean, so much of the record is about road tripping and being on the actual road. But I think it’s more so the need to continue to question and evaluate yourself in life, having a roaming brain, rather than the literal sense of, “I need to go to another state” or whatever it may be. In my daily life, I love being home. I’m the biggest homebody. I’m not like, “I gotta get out and travel.” So I think that line is more about self-investigation, an idea of always being curious to what else is out there. Not in a romantic sense, but whatever that may be – if it’s a conversation with someone on the corner, reading a new book, trying to listen to a different genre of music. An idea of being forever evolving and forever changing as a person.
I think the title of the album also frames it around that, in a way, and it’s also about the transition from childhood to adulthood. Which inevitably positions it in that blurry age of adolescence, like a fever dream that keeps hanging on. I feel like you home in on that intensity of feeling on ‘Seventeen’.
CGW: Definitely. When I wrote ‘Seventeen’, that was the subject. Trying to write that feeling was very much what I was trying to do, whether that was in fiction writing or at that point in song. And, yeah, fever dream is a very good way to describe it. It’s this emotional intensity that really only exists at that point in your life where everything is a big deal. I think it is special to hang on to that feeling and to hone in on it into adulthood, and it’s something that I still try and hold on to. Not necessarily the angst or the hormonalness of it, but just letting yourself feel like things are big deals. Being able to focus on your emotions and really feel intensely about things, I think, is important no matter what age you are. Obviously, as you go through that and move past it literally, hormonally, and grow as a person, things aren’t as big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. But I think being able to not lose that part of yourself that really loved or felt intensely or had really strong opinions on things is important. I really have always loved coming-of-age novels and things that focus on that aspect. And I think coming of age also really involves early twenties – it’s not just being 18. It’s past that, too, because there’s so much growth that happens between 20 and 25 or 27 or whatever it may be.
One thing that makes this perspective come across on the record is that it sounds comfortable in its vulnerability. How much do you feel like that was baked into the songs? Or was it something that also came with how they were developed collaboratively?
CGW: Probably both. It’s not something I’m really thinking about when I’m writing. I think it probably comes out because that’s how I live my life. The vulnerability is baked in – the little bit of emotional discomfort is always there, and I’m always willing to talk about that and let that be at the forefront. So I think when it comes to songwriting, of course it’s coming out that way. Musically, I think that the vulnerability of the way the songs sound speaks to playing with a band that gets what the songs mean and what they’re supposed to sound like. Not coming to them with a heavy hand or whatever it may be.
ST: Everybody in the group kind of shares some similar version of your sensitivity, I think.
CGW: Oh, yeah.
ST: It’s funny. I feel like sometimes if somebody was a fly on the wall in the practice room with us or the van or something, they would probably laugh at how carefully we’re navigating each other’s feelings. At least among the boys, it’s like the opposite of horse playing or shitting on each other and being mean to each other. There’s a whole lot of care and, in a similar fashion to Casey, being heavily invested in other people’s well-being and also in their perceptions.
Do you feel like it’s different when a song is involved? Does the feeling become more precious in a way?
CGW: I think it’s very much the same. When I bring a song to the table, I’m not super precious about it besides maybe the lyrics. But I am really open to however it comes through. I don’t think that there’s this, like, “Here’s this fragile piece of glass that we all have to be careful holding that I’ve brought to the table.” It’s definitely more like a piece of clay that has its original form, but everyone’s hands can be on it, and we can figure out what it is. The sensitivity and the emotion is really all of us working together on it rather than bringing this really fragile, structured, intense thing that can’t be changed to the table.
ST: I feel like there’s two different versions of angst, or maybe you shouldn’t use the same word for both of them. But there’s apathetic, dark, really destructive angst, and then there’s angst from caring too much or so much. And sometimes I feel like when people have, I think rightly, pointed out that there’s some angst in the material on the album, sometimes I’ve been confused because I’ve been like, there’s zero apathy. There’s zero dejectedness or anything I’d associate with a teenager who is angry and lost motivation. But in the end, it is accurate to say there’s angst, and I think that’s because it’s this other form that is more related to fear of loss or righteous indignation, a whole range of emotions and reactions that you can rightly call angsty, but have nothing to do with kind of nihilist, adolescent image that that word sometimes leads me to think of.
Maybe it’s the way the record is sequenced, but I feel like it eases you into the more personal, sincere songs by opening with more character-focused, observational ones, at least until ‘Seventeen’.
CGW: That’s very interesting. I haven’t ever thought of it that way. For me, all the songs are very autobiographical. But yeah, that is true. I mean, it was not intentional in the way it’s sequenced – I think we sequenced it mostly sonically and not thinking about it too hard.
ST: But that is interesting, how a song like ‘Nora’ is autobiographical, but through someone else technically being the protagonist.
CGW: And same with, yeah, ‘Buick Door’ and ‘Kentucky Cave’. That’s super true. I hadn’t really thought about it.
Similar to what Spencer was saying about angst, there’s also a feeling of nostalgia, though that doesn’t feel like the word – I love the line in ‘In a Bungalow’ about how you could “stand to regress.” It’s a feeling you kind of take pleasure in.
CGW: Oh, yeah. The song ‘Bungalow’ is so much about people from my hometown and thinking about them, this feeling of being glad not to be them and not being in their life anymore – but also having this fantasy of going back to it and, like, relishing it. Kind of feeling above it, but at the same time, knowing that I’m not. I think it’s a feeling everyone can relate to, whether that’s going back to a hometown friend or going back to an ex and having a drink or whatever. You’re regressing, but also, it feels good. [laughs] It feels good to do that because you’re indulging part of yourself that has maybe fantasies about showing them how much better you are now or how much you’ve grown. It’s totally rooted in a daydream that a lot of people have of going back to things that have happened as your present day self.
I know the vocals were recorded later along with some of the additional instrumentation. Did having that separation from the initial part of the process make you feel nervous?
CGW: I don’t think there was a feeling of anxiety. I had never tried vocals before when we did it, but I also never felt too precious about it. It was kind of like, “These songs are going to sound however they’re going to sound. I’m not trying to perfect my voice.” It’s mainly just about getting the emotion across when I was singing it. It just felt good to lay down those vocal tracks over what was already a really good base of the record, and I don’t think that we spent too much painful time on any one track. We just got through it in multiple sessions. Maybe I had some worry about how my voice would sound recorded, because it’s not like I’ve ever practised or had any sort of professional experience with my voice.
Spencer, when you’re mixing the record, did you have any interactions with the band? How did you feel about the way it was shaping up?
ST: It was just between me and Casey. We didn’t involve anybody else. The main job was playing traffic cop between the auxiliary instruments that we had added after onto the basics – basically, weaving the fiddle with the pedal steel, which Scott and Max would have done naturally as musicians if they had performed at the same time. But because we collected many ideas from them in a harvesting session separately, we had to sculpt an arrangement out of those instruments and also the piano and organ. There was some technical thinking like that, but we did in a couple of periods of one week of intense focus and then putting it in the drawer for a long time. Every time we would come back to it, it was fresh again. I’m sure you’ve talked to a lot of people who have similar marinating processes. But all along the way, we wanted to preserve the naturalness, and we wanted to have a pretty light touch. Just make it sound like a record that we would be excited to find and put on, and keeping Casey’s voice at the forefront of all of it.
Casey, did this batch of songs affect the way you write now?
CGW: I think I’m still writing in a very similar way. Some of the songs that we’ve now written for what’s the next record, Spencer and I have written them together. But a lot of it is coming from a journal entry or an idea still, or a character that I imagine in my mind. I don’t think that has really changed at all. I might be thinking more about it sonically now, how it’s gonna sound as a full group and on a record and what we can do with it. Whereas before, I was really focused on just the guitar and voice. But I still think that the most important thing in a song is, always, keep it a bit simple and have the message come across.
How does co-writing feel at the moment?
CGW: We really have a really good way of songwriting together where it’s just like a conversation. I feel like I come at it with an idea of how it should sound sonically or what the story is about, and we’re able to sit and think about what the words are that need to be in that song or what the chords are, what the feeling is, what the melody is, and just bang it out together. There’s not really any hardship in it.
ST: I feel like I’ve been, particularly with lyrics and melody, able to help in a way that I’ve never been able to help in other collaborations because Casey provides such clear prompts and structures. Whereas writing by myself, trying to write a song completely by myself, you can be paralyzed by the unlimited potential. But with Casey, at least one version of the process that happens often is that you set up these kinds of guide rails or show where the holes are.
Could you share one thing that’s currently inspiring you about each other, musically or personally?
ST: That’s really nice.
CGW: Yeah, that’s sweet. I think for me, it’s Spencer’s willingness, and having the tenacity, to hop into situations with different bands and go on the road. To be comfortable and figure out how to be comfortable, and be flexible while still very much being himself and not ever faltering on that, is something that I’m figuring out how to do and learning how to do and now going to be put in situations where I need to do it. I’m definitely looking up to him and thinking about how he does it, and that it’s okay to be flexible but remain yourself.
ST: There are a lot of things about you that inspire me all the time, but the one that comes to mind right now is the willingness to see goodness in other people. I think that can be a scary concept, because it can make you sound like somebody’s easily taken advantage of or naive to badness, but it is not that at all. Being someone prone to worry and self-doubt, and being around someone who’s not prone to finding issues where there are none, or needless judgment – it gives me personally a lot of confidence, but I know it doesn’t just apply to me. This is why Casey’s relationships are strong with her family and with other friends. To put it in corny terms, I think it’s part of how she elevates people. I don’t know if it’s weird to say an inspiring aspect is something that has so much to do with other people, but I think it’s admirable and generous.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Wednesday have shared their latest Bleeds single, ‘Bitter Everyday’, alongside a music video by Ben Turok shot in Lake Santeelah in Western North Carolina. It’s stormy and electric until the very last moments, where Karly Hartzman finally sings, “The sweetest parts of life keep getting bitter every day,” and it cuts like a knife. Check it out below.
“‘Bitter Everyday’ is a song formed around my desperate desire to tell the story about how, in 2019, this lady came up on our porch at like 3 in the morning when Jake and our friend Andrew were out there drinking and playing guitar”, Hartzman explained in a statement. “She asked them if she could sing them a song she had written, she had an incredible voice. They recorded a voice note of it and showed it to me the next morning when I woke up. I knew which lady it was, she was a houseless person who walked around the downtown area a lot. Weeks later, I was walking home from work and I saw a photo of her on a telephone pole. It was an old mug shot of her, and she was done up in juggalo makeup. The description on the paper said she was wanted for murder. The chorus is an homage to Iris DeMent’s song ‘Easy’s Gettin’ Harder Everyday.’”
