Wishy – the group led by Indiana songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites – have dropped a new track, ‘Too True’. Following their debut single ‘Donut’, it’s set to appear on their upcoming EP Paradise, which is out December 15. Check it out below.
“This song is about how my relationship with someone that I grew up idolizing had naturally shifted over the years,” Krauter said of ‘Too True’ in a statement. “Part of it is a grieving lament at what was lost in that process; how growing into oneself can catalyze that shift, how people can tend to grow apart without realizing or trying, and how to forgive yourself and others for that natural process.”
Friko – the Chicago band made up of vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger – have announced their debut full-length, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here. It’s out February 16 on ATO Records. Today, they’ve shared its lead single, ‘Crashing Through’, along with a video directed by Alec Basse. Check it out below.
According to Kapetan, ‘Crashing Through’ is about “wanting better for yourself and the people around you, but wondering how you can possibly do that with the world we live in.”
Where we’ve been, Where we go from here was co-produced by Scott Tallarida and Jack Henry, and mastered by Heba Kadry. “One of the main things we want to do as a band is talk about what’s happening right now and everything we’re feeling, with an honesty and directness that gets through to people,” Kapetan said. “I hope that our music helps everyone feel more deeply, but in a way that goes beyond just reacting to the songs. I want it to pick people up, so that they can actually go out and do something with whatever they’re feeling.”
Where we’ve been, Where we go from here Cover Artwork:
Where we’ve been, Where we go from here Tracklist:
1. Where We’ve Been
2. Crimson to Chrome
3. Crashing Through
4. For Ella
5. Chemical
6. Statues
7. Until I’m With You Again
8. Get Numb To It!
9. Cardinal
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
Mannequin have served up another single off their new album, I Got Heaven, which is out March 1 on Epitaph. ‘Sometimes’ follows previous cuts ‘I Don’t Know You’ and the title track. Check it out below, along with the band’s just-announced 2024 North America tour dates.
“‘Sometimes’ is the internal conversation and subsequent battle that comes with facing your own desires,” singer/guitarist Marisa Dabice explained in a statement. “It is a song about the struggle of feeling a deep need for one’s independence while at the same time accepting that you are longing for someone who would understand you and be enough to draw you away from your solitude. It is the anger you feel at someone for making you feel desire. For allowing that desire to distract you from your work and your self and your mission.”
Mannequin Pussy 2023/2024 Tour Dates:
Nov 15 – London, UK – Windmill Brixton
Nov 16 – London, UK – Windmill Brixton
Nov 18 – L’hospitalet De Llobregat, ES – Primavera Sound
Apr 5 – Durham, NC – Motorco Music Hall
Apr 6 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry
Apr 8 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall
Apr 10 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
Apr 11 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi Indy
Apr 12 – Cleveland Heights, OH – Grog Shop
Apr 13 – Columbus, OH – The King of Clubs
Apr 15 – Nashville, TN – The Basement East
Apr 16 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
Apr 18 – Fort Worth, TX – Tulips
Apr 19 – Houston, TX – House of Blues Bronze Peacock
Apr 20 – Austin, TX – Mohawk
Apr 22 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
Apr 24 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
Apr 26 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda
Apr 27 – San Francisco, CA – August Hall
Apr 29 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
Apr 30 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
May 2 – Salt Lake City, UT – Soundwell
May 4 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
May 5 – Fort Collins, CO – Aggie Theatre
May 7 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
May 8 – Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
May 10 – Detroit, MI – Saint Andrew’s Hall – The Shelter
May 11 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern
May 13 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
May 14 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
May 16 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
May 17 – Washington, DC – The Atlantis
May 22 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
Madi Diaz has shared the latest single from her upcoming album, a duet with Kacey Musgraves called ‘Don’t Do Me Good’. Following Weird Faith‘s lead single ‘Same Risk’, the track features album co-producers Sam Cohen (bass) and Konrad Snyder (percussion), as well as the Walkmen’s Matt Barrick (drums, percussion). Check out its Elizabeth Olmstead-directed video below.
“I wanted this song to feel like calling your friend,” Diaz explained in a statement. “That moment of needing to commiserate and to have that person say ‘yeah, I’ve been there’ and share that experience with you.” She added:
I am so happy Kacey said ‘yes’ when I asked her to sing on ‘Don’t Do Me Good.’ This song would have been so awfully lonely without her and I am so grateful I get to hear her voice on this with mine.
This song is about that person that we keep coming back to, no matter how many times they let us down. It’s about waking up every day and making the choice to love a person unconditionally while it’s simultaneously getting harder and harder to ignore that nothing is getting better in the relationship. It’s stubborn, it’s defiant, it’s hopeful, and it’s aggressively optimistic. It’s about being a bit of a masochist and being so in love with the hard work of loving a person that you don’t know how to walk away from them.
André 3000 has announced his debut solo album, New Blue Sun, which will be released this Friday, November 17. The 87-minute record, though, features “no bars, no beats, no sub-bass,” NPR reports. It instead sees André playing different kinds of flute: contrabass flute, maya flutes, bamboo flutes, as well as digital wind instruments. One track is called ‘I Swear, I Really Wanted To Make a ‘Rap’ Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time’. You can find the full tracklist below.
“There’s this misconception that I just won’t do it,” André said of releasing a rap record in a statement. “I think people feel like I’m sitting around on rap albums, or sitting around and I’m just not putting them out in that way. And no it’s not like that… In my mind, I really would like to make a rap album. So maybe that happens one day, but I got to find a way to say what I want to say in an interesting way that’s appealing to me at this age.”
New Blue Sun came about after André started jamming with multi-instrumentalist Carlos Niño, who introduced him to the group of musicians who appear on the album, including Nate Mercereau, Surya Botofasina, Deantoni Parks, Diego Gaeta, Matthewdavid, V.C.R, Diego Gaeta, Jesse Peterson, and Mia Doi Todd.
“It’s not like I don’t try or it’s not like I have a lot of these songs just sitting – I have songs but it’s not like rap things that I really feel happy about sharing,” André told NPR. “And really, that’s the most important part. I have to feel happy about sharing it. That’s why New Blue Sun was something that I realized, whoa, I really want people to hear it. I really want to share it.”
New Blue Sun Cover Artwork:
New Blue Sun Tracklist:
1. I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time
2. The Slang Word P(*)ssy Rolls Off the Tongue With Far Better Ease Than the Proper Word Vagina . Do You Agree?
3. That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild
4. BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears A 3000™ Button Down Embroidered
5. Ninety Three ’Til Infinity And Beyoncé
6. Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Your Lord & Savior J.C. / Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, And John Wayne Gacy
7. Ants To You, Gods To Who ?
8. Dreams Once Buried Beneath the Dungeon Floor Slowly Sprout Into Undying Gardens
Helado Negro has unveiled a new single, ‘I Just Want to Wake Up With You’. It’s taken from his forthcoming LP PHASOR, which arrives February 9 and includes the previously shared track ‘LFO’. Check it out via the self-directed video below.
Chastity Belt have announced their new album, Live Laugh Love. Marking their debut on Suicide Squeeze, the follow-up to the band’s 2019 self-titled record comes out March 29. Check out a video for the first single, ‘Hollow’, below, along with the cover artwork and tracklist.
In a press release, the band’s Julia Shapiro described ‘Hollow’ as “a classic Chazzy-style tune about feeling lost and stuck, waiting for something to change without necessarily taking action. The older I get, the more I realize that I might just always feel this way, and it’s more about sitting with the feeling and accepting it, rather than trying to fight it. I’m still here, doing my thing, whatever that is. I remember first jamming on this song together when we were all in Joshua Tree during the pandemic… maybe spring 2021?”
“Generally when we set about coming up with an idea for a music video as a band, we try to think of something ridiculous we’d like to do that we would never otherwise fund ourselves (ie. Segway adventure, medieval horseback riding),” Lydia Lund commented on the song’s visual. “In each shot we were performing in order to make our friends in the room laugh, taking each bit to the next level, seeking joy in late capitalism.”
Director Nick Shively added: “We had a TikTok mood board floating around and I went on some deep dives that did irreparable damage to my For You page. The shoot itself was so fun and light. We all just kinda goofed around in an extremely hot and sterile house this last summer. I was laughing the whole time and I wound up shooting something like 4 and half hours of “content.” I also remember the neighbors having a lot of chickens roaming their yard, and we got a full refund on all the ring lights.”
Back in 2021, Chastity Belt shared the standalone tracks ‘Fake’ and ‘Fear’.
Live Laugh Love Cover Artwork:
Live Laugh Love Tracklist:
1. Hollow
2. Funny
3. Clumsy
4. It’s Cool
5. Kool-Aid
6. Chemtrails
7. Blue
8. Tethered
9. I-90 Bridge
10. Laugh
11. Like That
Coco – the project of Maia Friedman (Dirty Projectors), Oliver Hill (Pavo Pavo), and Dan Molad (Lucius) – have shared a new single called ‘Do This Right’. It’s set to appear on their upcoming album, 2 – out March 1 on First City Artists – alongside the previously released ‘Mythological Man’. Check it out via the accompanying video below.
“Oliver got a nasty cold at the Richmond recording session and was out of commission for a few days in bed,” the band explained in a statement. “That’s where he added verses to this chorus of Danny’s. One beautiful thing about wordless, minimalistic music is that the listener is given the opportunity to dial into small details without distraction – subtle shifts in the synths and guitars in the foreground, while Maia holds down the ticking clock on drums. This is Danny’s favorite-ever vocal take of Oliver’s – and they’ve made a lot of records together over the years!”
Molly Lewis has announced her debut album, On the Lips, which is set to arrive on February 16 via Jagjaguwar. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Lounge Lizard’, alongside a video directed by Ambar Navarro that draws inspiration from Julie London’s apparition in the 1956 film The Girl Can’t Help It. Check it out below.
“Wherever you happen to be, I’d like you to let this song soundtrack the next few minutes of your life,” Lewis said in a statement. “I hope that it accentuates your surroundings, gently transforming them into the sonic equivalent of having a personal sax player serenade you from the bath.”
Lewis recorded On the Lips with producer Thomas Brenneck (Menahan Street Band, Charles Bradley, Amy Winehouse) at Diamond West Studios in Pasadena. The record features contributions from Nick Hakim, Brazilian guitarist Rogê, Leland Whitty and Chester Hansen of BADBADNOTGOOD, Chicano soul group Thee Sacred Souls, pianist Marco Benevento, and El Michels Affair’s Leon Michels.
On the Lips Cover Artwork:
On the Lips Tracklist:
1. On the Lips
2. Lounge Lizard
3. Crushed Velvet
4. Slinky
5. Moon Tan
6. Silhouette
7. Porque Te Vas
8. Cocosette
9. Sonny
10. The Crying Game
