Wolf Parade’s ‘Under Glass” is a standout from Thin Mind, their acclaimed album of 2020.
It’s now the subject of a gory yet humorous, Cronenberg-esque official video, and will see its premiere tonight, Saturday, April 18th via the Episode One Podcast charity stream with ChapoFYM on Twitch. The charity stream event will raise funds for the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation!
The “Under Glass” video is directed by Caleb Bardgett and Johnny Dunn, stars Keegan Kruse, with special effects makeup from Cig Neutron (Face-Off All-Stars winner), filmed by Thaddeus Bridwell, and video effects by Bardgett.
Dan Boecker says of the video, “‘Under Glass’ is inspired by Canada’s greatest cultural export: David Cronenberg. The protagonist sits in isolation, their only joy in life is plugging in a bioport and interfacing with a psychedelic PS1 hellscape where they are loved and adored. Their body decays. They’re smiling.”
And co-directors Jonny Dunn and Caleb Bardgett offered this, “We worked with Dan last year on some really cool videos for one of his other projects, and so naturally we jumped at the chance to jam with the Wolf Parade boys on this video for ‘Under Glass.’
“We looked at Brian Yuzna’s SOCIETY and Cronenberg as spiritual references for the visuals, and theme-wise, the band wanted to tap into some end-of-times / isolation / addicted-to-screens stuff… This was mid-2019, preceding our eventual quarantine so it’s all more eerily-relevant now, seeing as how we’re all pretty alone and isolated, becoming very pale and more jacked-in.
“We really wanted to nail the body horror, which meant we needed a practical special FX master…but didn’t know anyone ourselves. We hit up a buddy of ours, Eric Skodis, who knows all about that world, and he referred us to a genius named Cig Neutron, who turned out to be the absolute perfect brain for making the best and grossest oozy stuff we could imagine. We shot the video all in one day at Cig’s studio, with Thaddeus Bridwell as DP.
“Keegan Kruse starred as our logged-on lonely video freak and was such a sport. He had to wear the make up all day, and it took him another half day just to peel all of the latex and make-up off of his face.
“We couldn’t be happier to see the video finally come out in a world where all of us are now trapped inside, living ‘Under Glass.’“
Thin Mind is available worldwide through Sub Pop, with the exception of Canada through Royal Mountain Records.
The 10-track album, which includes the highlights “Fast Learner (ft. Purple Tape Nate),”“Chocolate Souffle,”“Wet,” “Bad Bitch Walking (ft. Stas THEE Boss),” and “Thanking The Girls,” features contributions from singer/keyboardist Darrius Willrich, percussionist Carlos Niño, Knife Knights collaborator OCnotes, saxophonist Carlos Overall, and bassist Evan Flory-Barnes.
The New Yorker says of the album, “[Shabazz Palaces’] spontaneity and irreverence for rap conventions feel particularly urgent; these experiments are malleable and resistant to form at a time when declarative statements on the current era seem futile. Instead, the group continues bludgeoning musical complacency with songs as equivocal as inkblot tests. “This is high art / I tear the form apart,” Butler raps on “Chocolate Souffle.” He engages in a conversation—albeit an ambiguous one—with contemporary hip-hop on “Wet,” and dives headlong into a puddle of free jazz on “Reg Walks by the Looking Glass.” But the surprise is the uncharacteristically concrete “Thanking the Girls”—an ode to Butler’s daughters that unfolds over a static-filled, beautifully off-kilter.”
The Don of Diamond Dreams was recorded throughout 2019 and produced by Shabazz Palaces at Protect and Exalt: A Black Space in Seattle, mixed and engineered by Erik Blood with mixing assistance from Andy Kravitz at Studio 4 Labs in Venice, California, and mastered by Scott Sedillo at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles.
Purchases of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on clear vinyl with a silver swirl (while supplies last). All LP orders through the Sub Pop Mega Mart will also receive The Mushroom, a 90-page, 8x8 inch zine from the elusive author TTT, inspired by The Don of Diamond Dreams (the book will also be available for purchase at Shabazz Palaces live shows).
Meanwhile, fans who purchase LP through select independent retailers in the U.K. and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on sky blue vinyl (also, while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
What people are saying about Shabazz Palaces The Don of Diamond Dreams: ”The Don of Diamond Dreams finds Butler’s effects-treated voice rippling through a prism of mutated funk and R&B that feels simultaneously sumptuous and deeply unconventional.” [8/10] UNCUT
“How many acts release five albums and how many out of that are still as current and relevant as on their debut? Not many. Shabazz Palaces have now joined a rare breed of artists. The Don Of Diamond Dreams is a glorious album that yields more and more with each listen. And listen you need to, because if you don’t you might miss something.” [8/10] - CLASH
“The Don of Diamond Dreams is the most fully realized Shabazz Palaces LP yet—from Butler’s new confidence in his own poetic authority to the way he and multi-instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire create hip-hop songs that never stop experimenting.” [“Album of the Day”] - Bandcamp
“Through this long journey through different states of consciousness and emotion, Shabazz Palaces continue to serve as the intrepid explorers through the eternal form known as music. The don of diamond dreams and gold stitched jeans continues to shine his light on the path for all of us to follow.” - KEXP
“The Don of Diamond Dreams is a brilliant, buoyant work of provocation and invocation from the rapper-writer-producer. Holy, wise, abstract, and contagious, Don is intergalactic hip-hop that burrows as deep down as it does fly high.” - FLOOD Magazine
”The Don of Diamond Dreams prove Shabazz Palaces to be such a fascinating and exciting project in the age of algorithms and formulae.” [“Album of the Week”] The Guardian
“One of contemporary hip hop’s original outsiders” [★★★★] - Q
“The Don of Diamond Dreams…feels warmer and more optimistic…[It] feels imbued with a sense that alternative realities – different ways of telling stories, different mythologies to reflect our true nature – are always within our reach, if only we’re able to fully embrace our own imaginations.” - The Quietus
“Shabazz Palaces have created another exquisite album” - DJ Mag
“Expanding beyond their already broadened horizons, Shabazz Palaces are seemingly unstoppable.” [8/10] - The Line of Best Fit
“On the 10 track project, the Seattle artists continue to showcase their technologically-intertwined take on the experimental realms of rap and hip-hop, spicing up their Afrofuturist aesthetic with melty basslines, eclectic percussion, psychedelic synth pads, and more.” - Hypebeast
“The 10-track project is another futuristic ride through Butler’s otherworldly mind.” - HipHopDX
“Shabazz are at their best when they channel all their ambition into a more tightly-packed album like this one.” [“Notable Releases of the Week”] - Brooklyn Vegan
“[Shabazz Palaces] remain immersed in surrealism, but their atmospheric oddity ends up a splendid fit for today’s hip-hop landscape.” - RIFF Magazine
“The Don’s way of pulling you in is to hypnotize you with far-out jazz pageantry and devotion before cutting you loose to wander through the brilliant, idiosyncratic landscapes they created – and they make it look effortless while doing it.” [★★★★] - Spectrum Culture
“Diamond Dreams is immersive and solidifies Shabazz Palaces’ stature as one of the few hip-hop projects to emerge in the 2010s and create a wholly distinctive genre unto itself. Its intergalactic textures don’t resemble earth, but that’s a welcome escape at a historic moment when earth doesn’t feel particularly inhabitable for humans.” [The Don of Diamond Dreams] - PASTE
“It’s a psychedelic groove, chopped and screwed in the fifth dimension.” [“Fast Learner”] - The FADER
“A woozy and echo-laden lurch that the group recorded with the excellently named Purple Tape Nate…It’s a cool piece of music, a starry-eyed vibe-out, and it’s a strong indicator for how the rest of the album might sound…The track draws stylistic connections between rumbling ’80s electro, broken-up Brainfeeder beat music, and circa-now astral Auto-Tuned drug rap.” [“Fast Learner”] - Stereogum
“Play this loud, really loud. The wooziness really starts to glow with the volume turned way up on headphones or big speakers. It’s great retrofuture background music, good for speeding down the highway in a DeLorean or selling drugs to a fax machine.” [“Fast Learner”] - Washington Square News
“The brilliantly abstract Seattle rap duo returns, with a deep bass intro that spaces out into a more expansive track as Nate’s Auto-Tune support vocals waft astrally, and a simple backbone of a hook threading it all together.” [“Fast Learner”] - City Pages
“With tinges of funk engrained in their intergalactic production, Ishmael Butler vocals stretch through space with a robotic feel.” [“Chocolate Souffle”] - Hot New Hip Hop
“[Shabazz Palaces] have managed to continue Butler’s relentless desire to reimagine what hip hop should and could sound like while boldly proving that they’re the heirs to the astral imaginations of Sun Ra, George Clinton, Octavia Butler and Alice Coltrane.” - Joy of Violent Movement
Man Man’s “On the Mend” is a new highlight from Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between - A heartbreak-post-breakup pop song with Swordfishtrombones-vibes, that includes backing vocals from Steady Holiday’s Dre Babinski and Rebecca Black. Stream it in all the places, over here.
Honus Honus says of the track, “I wrote this a year or so after a painful break-up and although I was in a better place at the time, I wanted to touch on all of those raw emotions someone has to work through in order to get healthy and able to love themselves again. Musically, the tempo, the push, and pull of the band, the openness of it all just drives this home. So, yes, it’s a bit of a heavy song but I think it’s also one about hope, healing, letting go and moving on. The heart can be cruel but you can’t let it consume you.”
Dream Hunting…will be available on CD/2xLP/CS/DL worldwide on May 1st, 2020 and is available for preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com will receive the limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl (while supplies last).
After street date, a limited supply of the Loser edition LP will be available at select independent retailers in North America and at Man Man’s future live shows. Meanwhile, in the U.K. and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Ever the character, Honus Honus has also been hosting the delightfully weird “From Honie Pond” shower sessions on Instagram Live. The good, clean fun (head and shoulders ONLY, folx!) features chats with fans and surprise guests, can be seen live Monday through Friday at 1 pm PT -> instagram.com/honushonus.
Sub Pop has signed Flock of Dimes, the solo outlet for songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Jenn Wasner, to release her music throughout the world. We are also announcing today the release of Like So Much Desire, her excellent five-song effort and label debut (and first new Flock of Dimes material since 2016’s If You See Me, Say Yes), which is available now through all DSPs.
Like So Much Desire, the new EP from Jenn Wasner’s Flock of Dimes, is about the inseparable nature of desire and grief. It’s a collection of songs about finding peace amidst personal hardships, an offering of both comfort and personal reflection, reaching out across the unknown in search of connection. Moving and strikingly intimate, Like So Much Desire is Wasner’s most personal work yet.
Also of note: Flock of Dimes has scheduled a live concert stream via NoonChorus on Tuesday, June 30th at 7 pm ET.
Flock of Dimes Like So Much Desire Tracklisting: 1. Spring in Water 2. Like So Much Desire 3. Again (For the First Time) 4. When the Body Does Not 5. Thank You Friends and Strangers
Like So Much Desire, which includes standouts like the slow-burn title track, “Spring In Winter” and “Again (For the First Time),” was written and produced by Wasner, mixed by Ari Picker and mastered by Ryan Pickett.
The EP’s title track is a masterclass in slow burn, a song that deals directly with how you have to lose to gain, an acoustic beginning growing into a tangle of whirring gadgetry. The subdued, mellow prettiness of “Again (For the First Time)” offers reassurance, the sonic equivalent of leaning on someone’s shoulder. The piano-based “Spring in Winter” sounds near-hymnal, warmed by strings, dealing with the fleeting beauty of North Carolina’s unexpected springtime popping up in the cold, while “Thank You Friends and Strangers” opens on chirping birds and outside sounds – the sounds of nature and normalcy. Like So Much Desire blends all of these worlds seamlessly.
In many ways, Like So Much Desire feels like postcards sent from a strange new world. And fittingly, the work came together at a distance. The bulk of the songs were recorded by Wasner in her home in isolation, with other pieces coming from across the country; drummer JT Bates recorded his parts from Minneapolis, while the subtly-cinematic, swelling strings came via New York’s Paul Wiancko, Michi Wiancko, and Ayane Kozasa. The final product balances sparseness and fullness. Strange, glitchy synths flit in and out, an echo of distant playfulness, but the main instrument is the depth of Wasner’s voice and how she uses space around it.
As a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Wasner has been a longtime omnipresent force in modern music. As half of beloved duo Wye Oak she’s worked with everyone from Metropolis Ensemble to the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and more recently she’s been a member of both Bon Iver and Sylvan Esso. But for all her collaborative expertise, it’s Wasner’s solo work as Flock of Dimes that is most salient, her songwriting at the forefront, strange, beautiful, and dazzling at the same time.
For Wasner, the making of this EP had to do with rediscovering the powerful, healing connection of making music, the peace it offers, the way it makes it possible to bridge a gap – and as such, Like So Much Desire strives to offer comfort during upheaval and uncertainty. Both sorrow and joy all at once, it looks at halves of a whole, the broken-up spectrum of human experience distilled into just five tracks.
Now is the perfect time to follow Flock of Dimes in all the places:
Man Man’s Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between is out today worldwide on Sub Pop, and also streaming here. The 17-track effort features “On the Mend,” “Future Peg,” “Cloud Nein,” “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).
Rolling Stone, in its 4-star review, says, “It makes sense that Ryan Kattner of Man Man would release his best album to date during a pandemic. His band persona, Honus Honus, is perpetually down on his luck — bizarre and lovelorn, lonely and insane — haunted. In short, he’s all of us right now…the grotesque and the gorgeous has served Man Man well through the years — and with Dream Hunting, they’ve reached the ideal mix: more gorgeous than grotesque, more raw than ragged.”
The AV Club says, “Honus Honus—a.k.a. Ryan Kattner—is back with his freewheeling off-kilter pop group Man Man, and possibly its most accessible record yet. As eclectic as ever, the sprawling mix of horns, keys, percussion, guitars, and more remains a half-step away from sounding like the most unusual cabaret act in modern times.”
Shindig Magazine noted the album for it’s “touches of Tom Waits-ian squalor, Broadway degradation, and fin de siècle decadence” and its “utterly infectious (pun intended) ‘Cloud Nein’, with its ‘Paul Williams as performed by Captain Beefheart’ sound… it’s just one of 17 sparkling tracks, the album a bold comeback after seven years of silence…”
And Glide Magazine offers this, “Throughout the album, Kattner spins fascinating tales of love, lust, death, the occult, and a goat attack. The piano-based songs carry elements of jazz and rock, with Kattner’s keen ear for sing-along melodies matched only by his desire to attack such melodies with unexpected bursts of bedlam. Those tumultuous bursts, occurring frequently and usually without warning, are part of what makes Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between so exciting, with no dull moments even over 17 tracks of content.”
Dream Hunting… is available from Sub Pop and select independent retailers in North America.LP orders through megamart.subpop.com will be delayed slightly due to a Covid-19 related pressing plant closure. The limited Loser edition on white vinyl with a pinkish swirl is nearly sold out despite these delays and is only available while supplies last. Meanwhile, in the U.K.and Europe, preorders through select independent retailers will receive their own slight variation of the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl that has fortunately not experienced any production delays (also, while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design available through megamart.subpop.com.
Man Man will be hosting “The Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between Social-Distancing Telethon”today, Friday, May 1st from 1 pm PST until the wheels drop off. Fans can watch live through Sub Pop’s YouTube Live channel and the band’s Facebook account. The telethon will feature social-distancing style performances from the new album and special guests throughout the simulcast.
Six years ago we opened the Sub Pop Store at Sea-Tac International Airport (this guy right here). In the years since, we’ve had countless bands and music lovers come through our doors. On occasion some of them have even bought stuff! We look forward to opening those doors again one day, once it’s safe to do so. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of our music community, thank you for caring about Sub Pop and our artists, and thank you for sometimes buying the things we used to sell. We miss you!
Even though the Sub Pop Store at SeaTac is currently shuttered, we’re celebrating its 6th birthday from a safe distance with a playlist of songs put together by the people who make the store what it is. Come see us on the other side…
