Sub Pop has signed Man Man to a worldwide deal and will release Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between on CD/2xLP/CS/DL worldwide on May 1st, 2020. You can now watch the new lyric video for “Cloud Nein,” the album’s ebullient first offering, which is available now at all DSPs. Honus Honus, who directed the visual, says of the track, “Life is short. Dance, be merry.”
The 17-track effort also features “Future Peg,” “On the Mend” “Sheela,” and “Animal Attraction,” was produced by Cyrus Ghahremani, mixed by S. Husky Höskulds (Tom Waits, Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette, Allen Toussaint), and mastered by Dave Cooley (Blood Orange, M83, DIIV, Paramore, Snail Mail, clipping). Dream Hunting…also includes guest vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski on “Future Peg” and “If Only,” and Rebecca Black (singer of the viral pop hit, “Friday”) on “On The Mend” and “Lonely Beuys.” The album follows the release of “Beached” and “Witch,“ Man Man’s contributions to Vol. 4 of the Sub Pop Singles Club in 2019.
Man Man will tour extensively in 2020 in support of Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. Live dates will be announced soon.
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between is now available for preorder from Sub Pop.
Man Man Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between
Tracklisting: 1. Dreamers 2. Cloud Nein 3. On the Mend 4. Lonely Beuys 5. Future Peg 6. Goat 7. Inner Iggy 8. Hunters 9. Oyster Point 10. The Prettiest Song in the World 11. Animal Attraction 12. Sheela 13. Unsweet Meat 14. Swan 15. Powder My Wig 16. If Only 17. In the Valley of the In-Between
LP purchases through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will received the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last). Meanwhile, preorders through select independent retailers in the U.K. and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
[Photo credit: Dan Monick]
About Man Man’s Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between: Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s extremes: beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The songs on Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, Man Man’s first album in over six years and his Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful, and timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring.
At the end of 2015, Man Man went on an unexpected and unforeseen hiatus, and thus began a period of creative reinvention for Honus. He worked in music supervision and on scores (The Exorcist, Superdeluxe, Do You Want to See a Dead Body?). He acted in the indie film Woe (“I played a park ranger, a nice guy in a sad movie.”), So It Goes, a short musical film with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and starred in the award-winning tour documentary Use Your Delusion. He also developed an animated series, wrote film scripts, a graphic novel, a neo-noir TV pilot, and briefly penned a music column for The Talkhouse all while continuing to work on new music, such as an unreleased kids’ record, another Mister Heavenly album, a self-released Honus Honus record, and a conceptual art/noise project Mega Naturals. He was sleeping 2.5 hours per day.
In the midst of this Man Man sabbatical, Honus began piecing together what would become Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between. He recruited longtime-creative collaborator Ghahremani to help him produce. Written in a friend’s LA “guesthouse” (more shack than chic) that had “an old upright piano, a thrift store lamp, and nothing else,” it was an arduous, three-and-a-half-year process, “I had chord progression notes that looked like chicken scratch and lyrics on pieces of paper stuck all over the walls. It looked like I was about to break the big case, catch the killer,” he says, laughing. “One of the best things about this time, in these ‘lost in the wilderness/surreal exile from my own band’ years, was that I finally found players who believed in me, trusted my vision, respected my songwriting. It was rejuvenating.”
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between opens with “Dreamers,” an ethereal instrumental that soon takes a dark turn into the 20 seconds of cacophony that introduces “Cloud Nein.” An exercise in orchestral-pop storytelling tinted by wry cynicism, it features lyrics such as, “All your dreams crash and burn, and fall to the ground. When they’re made of sweet nothings ’cause nothing sticks around.” Says Honus: “I was writing a song about someone else, but also myself, in a sense. You have to keep changing, evolving in order to survive, appreciate what you have while you have it because there are no guarantees it’ll stick around forever. AKA, life.”
He would find inspiration everywhere. “If Only,” featuring feather-light vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski, came to him in a dream. “I first heard ‘If Only’ sung in an R&B Jackie Wilson kind of way,” he says of the haunting piano lullaby. The glitched-out fever dream “Oyster Point” opens with a recording of 8-year-old Honus singing to his newborn brother and named after the town where the frontman and his bandmates met someone who tried to sell them a broken bass clarinet. An ex, bitten by a goat and worried she’d contracted salmonella (true story!), inspired the off-kilter jazz narrative “Goat.” (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well!) In the opening seconds of “Goat” you can actually hear the first time Honus presented the song to his band —an iPhone recording of his drummer playfully teasing, in classic 80s movie tone, “Don’t fuck this up. This is a big gig,” before launching seamlessly into the studio version. “I was taking songs out under the guise of my solo band,” he explains, “so we could test the waters, see what worked live, what didn’t, and then I’d adjust accordingly. When it came time to finally record, we did everything at Cy’s studio but after a year or so of tracking, I didn’t like how ‘in the box’ and stiff everything felt so we booked out a short tour with the sole intention of rolling back and recutting everything together live in a larger studio space. In two frantic tracking days. It was crucial to me that this album feels like a band playing together in a room, communicating with each other, breathing, organic, slithery, alive.”
This lust for life, gloriously unhinged at times, beats strongly throughout. The “Inner Iggy,” all staccato Pinocchio Pleasure Island vibes, pays obeisance to the punk singer as a one-man tsunami. Joseph Beuys, the conceptual artist famous for cohabitating with a coyote at a gallery, stands at the center of the full-throated “Lonely Beuys.” Meanwhile, “Sheela,” a pop-fuzz update on doo-wop, is a love song to the cult attaché at the center of Wild Wild Country. “I watched that documentary, and she terrified me,” he says. “But weeks later, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I loved how strong and powerful and determined a person she was.” The devil is in the details, which is why they affected coyote howls to honor the hell-raiser.
“I started Man Man because I saw Holy Mountain when I was 22. It blew my mind. I had never been in a band or played music before, but I knew I needed to make songs that sounded like that movie felt,” he says. “When I was hunkering down to write, there was a lot of self-doubt, fighting the urge to throw in the towel. It was unavoidable but I had to dive headlong into these fears and twist them into something that wasn’t dominated by them. I’m not gonna lie, it fucking sucked, but it definitely forced the best album of my career out of me. Sometimes you have to tear it all down to build it back up the right way.”
Kattner caught the killer. He is currently sleeping 3.5 hours per day. Hope reigns.
The official music video for Orville
Peck’s “Queen of the Rodeo” is premiering today. Directed by Austin Peters(Haim,
Chvrches, Bastille), the video also features a special interlude version of
Peck’s song “Roses Are Falling.”
Both songs
come from Peck’s critically acclaimed debut album Pony, out now
on Sub Pop Records. In celebration of the album, Peck will continue
his extensive U.S. tour this spring including stops at Seattle’s Showbox, San Francisco’s The Independent, Las Vegas’ Brooklyn
Bowl, San Diego’s Humphrey’s and New Orleans’ Music Box Theatre among several
others. Peck will also perform at both Coachella and Stagecoach
festivals this spring, one of the select few artists performing at both events.
Tickets for these shows are on-sale
now via https://www.orvillepeck.com/tour.
Sub Pop is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Night Flight Plus streaming service. Night Flight Plus members can now watch fifty Sub Pop videos with new introductions by the show’s original host Pat Prescott. Featured artists include Weyes Blood, Mudhoney, Sleater-Kinney, Orville Peck, and more.
Check out Night Flight’s official Sub Pop playlist here on Spotify.
Remembered by millions, Night Flight aired on the USA network from 11 PM–4 AM and is credited with breaking numerous alternative and avant-garde musicians and directors to TV audiences around the country. (Night Flight premiered four months before MTV). As DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh recalls, “Night Flight was one of the cool shows to be seen on, and it was a big deal to us to get the opportunity.”
The brand relaunched in 2016 as an on-demand streaming service offering exclusive access to the original 1980s episodes as well as an eclectic collection of cult films, music documentaries, and concerts. The new Sub Pop partnership allows users to stream current and legacy Sub Pop music videos adapted to the show’s original format.
Night Flight’s pioneering “Take Off” format featured artists and genres in “blocks” which helped cultivate the high cultural literacy Night Flight is now most known for today. An essential platform for discovery, Night Flight is honored to expose its loyal following to the music and video art of both new and legacy Sub Pop artists.
Stuart S. Shapiro, Night Flight Creator, and CEO said: “Sub Pop is the quintessential independent label and Night Flight has always been dedicated to the discovery and support of emerging and alternative music artists. We are thrilled that Sub Pop is our first label featured on NF Plus and expect to make a big push to all the others.”
Night Flight Plus is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and online. Subscription info is over here.
Redd Kross, Julia Jacklin, Guerilla Toss added to the upcoming Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 5 series, now open for subscriptions over here.
Two new singles from the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 4 are now available on all digital music services.
Japanese psychedelic rock group Kikagaku Moyo present a stunning, hypnotic cover of the traditional folk song “Gypsy Davey,” as arranged by Sandy Denny’s band Fotheringay in 1970, backed with a new, original song called “Mushi No Uta.” Both tracks were recorded in 2019 at Wilton Way Studio in London, and the single features cover art by Portland, OR artist Hailee Va.
About Kikagaku Moyo: Kikagaku Moyo started in the summer of 2012 busking on the streets of Tokyo. Though the band started as a free music collective, it quickly evolved into a tight group of multi-instrumentalists. Kikagaku Moyo call their sound psychedelic because it encompasses a broad spectrum of influence. Their music incorporates elements of classical Indian music, Krautrock, Traditional Folk, and 70s Rock. Most importantly their music is about freedom of the mind and body and building a bridge between the supernatural and the present. Improvisation is a key element to their sound. Go & Tomo run their own record label Guruguru Brain currently based in Amsterdam. Guruguru Brain has released about 10 artists from Asia including Kikagaku Moyo since 2014.
Australian post-punk/pop quartet Terry – featuring members of Total Control, Constant Mongrel, Primo, and more – present two new originals: the catchy-as-hell A side “Take the Cellphone,” recorded by Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Total Control), and the self-recorded instrumental B side “Debt and Deficit Disaster.” The vinyl versions of both bands’ singles were limited to 1000 copies, and were only available to subscribers of the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 4.
About Terry: Terry is a band from Australia. Divide Terry in half and you split the genders, into quarters and you get Amy Hill (also of Constant Mongrel, School Of Radiant Living, Primo), Xanthe Waite (Primo), Zephyr Pavey (Eastlink, Total Control, Russell St Bombings) and Al Montfort (UV Race, Dick Diver, Total Control). Guitars, bass, drums, all four sing. Terry are busy people and Terry is a particularly active project too, having released three EPs, three albums and conducted three European tours with the help of London’s Upset! The Rhythm before having a crack at the American market with this spiffy single for Sub Pop subscribers.
About the Sub Pop Singles Club Intermittently, since 1988, Sub Pop has roped artists into letting us release a couple of their songs on the 7” vinyl format, resulting in releases by Nirvana, Soundgarden, L7, The White Stripes, Bright Eyes, and a ton more. We then shipped these singles to people who had the forethought to subscribe, in advance, to the Singles Club. Many of these singles have since become very rare and sought-after. (Ok, so a few haven’t, but who’s counting?) Most recently, we somehow pulled off the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 4, running from April 2019-February 2020 (and totally closed for subscriptions since February, so don’t ask!). You can hear many of the past Singles Club releases via the Sub Pop Singles Club Playlist.
The Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 5 will keep this fine tradition of excellent new music and logistical headaches going for yet another year. These singles are one-time, limited pressings with exclusive tracks by each artist. Subscribe now or assuredly regret later!
12 vinyl 7” singles pressed by our friends at Third Man Pressing, with artful packaging lovingly designed by the musicians and the Sub Pop art department!
A nice box to store them all in!
An official Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 5 membership card!
Coolness! Conversation pieces! Things to have and hold over people who don’t have them! Relatives and acquaintances who are surprised to find out they still make those things! And other side-effects of record collecting!
How much? This much: $130 for the U.S. $170 for Canada $185 for Mexico $195 for the rest of the world. Shipping is included in each of those prices.
The Homesick has extended its international touring schedule for 2020 in support of The Big Exercise out now on Sub Pop. The dates, which resume tonight, March 4th in Oberhausen, Germany at Gdanska, now runs through August 25th in Washington, DC at DC9. Highlights for this announcement include new EU/UK dates from April 13th through June 13th and The Homesick’s first-ever North American tour, July 30th through August 25th. Ticket links are here.
Mar. 04 - Oberhausen, DE - Gdanska Mar. 05 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Mar. 06 - Rotterdam, NL - WORM Mar. 07 - Utrecht, NL - EKKO Apr. 18 - Genk, BE - Little Waves Festival Apr. 19 - London, UK - Shacklewell Arms Apr. 20 - Liverpool, UK - Shipping Forecast Apr. 21 - Leeds, UK - Oporto Apr. 22 - Brighton, UK - Prince Albert Apr. 25 - Esch-sur-Alzette, LU - Out of the Crowd Festival Apr. 26 - Offenbach, DE - Hafen 2 May 02 - Paris, FR - Supersonic Jun. 13 - Hilvarenbeek, NL - Best Kept Secret Festival Aug. 03 - Seattle, WA - The Sunset Tavern Aug. 05 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club Aug. 06 - Costa Mesa, CA - The Wayfarer Aug. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echo Aug. 09 - San Diego, CA - Space Bar Aug 10 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress Aug. 12 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk (Inside). Aug. 13 - Dallas, TX - Deep Ellum Art Gallery Aug. 14 - Memphis, TN - The Hi-Tone Cafe Aug. 16 - Chicago, IL - The Beat Kitchen Aug. 17 - Detroit, MI - Outer Limits Lounge Aug. 18 - Toronto, ON - The Monarch Aug. 19 - Montreal, QC - L’ Esco Aug. 21 - Boston, MA - The Middle East Aug. 22 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge Aug. 23 - Brooklyn, NY - TV Eye Aug. 24 - Philadelphia, PA - Kung Fu Necktie Aug. 25 - Washington, DC - DC9
The Homesick’s The Big Exercise is out now on CD/LP/DL worldwide through Sub Pop. The album, which features the singles “I Celebrate My Fantasy,” “Male Bonding,” “Kaïn,” and the title track, was produced by the band at Schenk Studio in Amsterdam, mixed by Casper van der Lans, and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring).
LP purchases of The Big Exercise through megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers and the Homesick’s shows in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on bright yellow vinyl (while supplies last). Meanwhile, LP purchases of the album in the UK and Europe from select independent retailers and the band’s live shows will receive the limited Loser edition on opaque yellow vinyl (while supplies last).
What “The People” are saying about The Homesick:
“The Homesick like a good tune. Fans of self-possessed art-pop are directed here.” [The Big Exercise, ★★★★] - MOJO
“In my humble opinion though, only a few acts have really transcended local industry mores and enlightened amateurism to make something of truly wider, lasting appeal. And maybe none more so than The Homesick with this record, which should surely sneak through the gates of classic pop heaven.” [The Big Exercise] - The Quietus
“An oddity, a triumph brimming with personality.” [The Big Exercise, ★★★★★] - NARC
“On their first LP for Sub Pop, the Netherlands trio double down on the infectious blend of melodic, whimsical pop and itchy post-punk rhythms laid out on their debut album.” [The Big Exercise] - Uncut
Today, LA’s Moaning have released ”Make It Stop,” the latest single from their anticipated sophomore album, Uneasy Laughter. Paste Magazine, who premiered the song (see here) and profiled the band today, is calling it “a return to the partly raucous, partly precise guitars of their first album. Lyrically, however, it’s a dramatic turn from their dejected self-titled-it almost comes off as an inner monologue between lead singer Sean Solomon’s past self and newly improved self.”
Uneasy Laughter is available for pre-order and due March 20th via Sub Pop.
Of the song, Solomon says “The song is about questioning negative thoughts but struggling to find a solution. Being stuck in your head. There was a period of time where I thought everyone hated me and was out to get me. Now I realize no one actually is putting that much energy into thinking about me at all. Depression can be extremely narcissistic. I encourage people who relate to this song to call someone and ask for help.
The whole band made a collage for the video. It was really fun piecing different elements together. We also added some extra surprises. The dimensions of the collage are 1920 by 40,000 pixels. It’s a big ass thing!”
Moaning is hitting the road this Spring on a run supporting Black Marble that includes at Austin, TX’s SXSW Music Festival.
