Beginning on July 31st in Columbus, OH, Bully will embark on a 10 date North American run with shows in, Nashville, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, and Seattle, ending on September 11th at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. These dates are in support of the band’s critically acclaimed 2020 release, SUGAREGG.
To celebrate their impending tour dates, you can now watch a full-band performance of the lead single “Where to Start” filmed at Drkmttr in Nashville, TN. SUGAREGG was one of the best-reviewed albums of 2020, receiving accolades from the likes of The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, CLASH, DIY, Alternative Press, Nashville Scene, Spin, Stereogum (“Album of the Week”), and Bandcamp (“Album of the Day”).
At radio, SUGAREGG peaked at #1 on the NACC 200 college radio for three weeks. The album also reached #1 on the SubModern commercial specialty chart. Support at radio is coming from many big stations including Sirius’s “ALT NATION” and “XMU,” Music Choice, The Current and GO 96.3 in Minneapolis, KEXP in Seattle, Radio Milwaukee, and many more!
SUGAREGG was produced and mixed by John Congleton and Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, with additional production and mixing by Graham Walsh, recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, and Palace Sound in Toronto, Ontario, and mastered by Heba Kadry.
SUGAREGG is available worldwide from Sub Pop.
Tour Dates: Jul. 31 - Columbus, OH - Skully’s Music Diner Aug. 14 - Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge Aug. 20 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Aug. 21 - Atlanta, GA - The EARL Aug. 26 - St Louis, MO - Off Broadway Aug. 28 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Aug. 30 - Milwaukee, WI - Back Room at Colectivo Aug. 31 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Hall Sep. 04 - Seattle, WA - Neumos Sep. 11 - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theatre
What people are saying about SUGAREGG: “Bognanno may be continuing a great tradition, but it provides a framework for catharsis that is deeply personal and candour that feels truly progressive.” ★★★★ - The Guardian
“SUGAREGG is confident and assured.” ★★★★ -NME
“The record flows, hitting knee-skinning highs like “Stuck in Your Head” (“I just wanted to pick up the tempo!” Bognanno sing-songs as the band counts off), barn-burners like “You” (about, it seems, an absent parent) and the hauntingly discordant “Hours and Hours.” Whatever the subject matter, whatever the tempo, each track finds Bognanno full-throated, wild and free…their most self-assured album yet.” ★★★½ -RollingStone
“SUGAREGG shows a musician at the top of their game, unafraid to take themselves a little less seriously than before.” ★★★★½ -The Forty Five
“When push comes to shove, SUGAREGG goes far to ease and maintain the cool in encountering happy sentiments and combine them with a fuck-it-all attitude. It is the blistering irresistibility of what is achieved at that point, which makes this record striking and inescapable.”[8/10] -CLASH
“This is joyous bubblegum grunge…Alicia Bognanno’s voice is as mesmeric and feral as ever, and her band sound simply, effortlessly, gigantic…you’re going to be rotting your teeth on SUGAREGG for weeks.” ★★★★ - NARC
“It’s a product full of joy, not maddening, but genuinely uplifting and encouraging. It’s also the best thing Bognanno has written. As the public is becoming increasingly accustomed to performances composed of lies and consistent sleight of hand, it’s rewarding to see someone go in the opposite direction and peel back the layers, revealing a freer and more transparent artistic self. It clearly hasn’t been easy, but on this basis, it certainly seems worth it.” - The Line Of Best Fit
“The most explosive collection of songs from Bognanno’s discography.” - Under the Radar
“…The songs on SUGAREGG feel like the singer, songwriter, guitarist, engineer and producer has reached a new level of comfort in her relationship with herself.” - Nashville Scene
Bully SUGAREGG
Tracklisting: 1. Add It On 2. Every Tradition 3. Where to Start 4. Prism 5. You 6. Let You 7. Like Fire 8. Stuck in Your Head 9. Come Down 10. Not Ashamed 11. Hours and Hours 12. What I Wanted
Flock of Dimes’ Head of Roses, which features “Two,” “Price of Blue,” “Hard Way,” and “One More Hour,” is available today worldwude on CD/CS/DSPs and on LP April 30th, 2021. The album was produced by Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso) and Wasner at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC, engineered by Bella Blasko with additional engineering by Sanborn, mixed by Ari Picker and Blasko, and mastered by Huntley Miller. The album features appearances from guitarist Meg Duffy, Bon Iver’s Matt McCaughan, Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, and Landlady’s Adam Schatz. Head of Roses follows the release of Like So Much Desire, her acclaimed digital EP released June 2020 on Sub Pop.
Head of Roses, and singles “Two” and “Price of Blue,” have seen praise from outlets like The Guardian, who say, “Her solo album out in April is superb. This sweetly shuffling [“Two”] is so rich in charm.” Uncut offers this, “An album that is as deeply introspective as it is creatively bold and ambitious (8/10).” The New York Times had this to say, ‘Can I be one? Can we be two?’ Jenn Wasner asks on her stirring new single…‘Two’ is driven by an irregular beat, as if to mirror the hesitant questioning of its lyrics. Even when she’s being somber or ruminative, Wasner has a touch of gallows humor, as when she muses memorably, ‘We’re all just wearing bodies like a costume til we die.’” Stereogum says, “Between the restrained LIke So Much Desire EP last year and the bubbly, infectious ‘Two,’ the lead single from her forthcoming album Head of Roses, it’s become clear that Flock Of Dimes has room for whatever songs Wasner wants to write and whatever stories she wants to tell. So that brings us to “Price of Blue,” a breakup reckoning that finds Wasner tapping into the autumnal, reflective rock sound that’s always been such a mesmerizing side of her songwriting.” Meanwhile, PASTE calls “Price of Blue” a “six-minute masterpiece of psychedelic guitar riffs and haunting vocal…,” and Guitar World raves, “Jenn Wasner is a bewitching guitarist… Head of Roses will find Wasner elevating her already otherworldly playing to new heights.”
Flock of Dimes’ Head of Roses, which features “Two,” “Price of Blue,” “Hard Way,” and “One More Hour,” will be available on CD/CS/DSPs on April 2nd, 2021, and on LP April 30th, 2021. The album was produced by Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso) and Wasner at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC, engineered by Bella Blasko with additional engineering by Sanborn, mixed by Ari Picker and Blasko, and mastered by Huntley Miller. The album features appearances from guitarist Meg Duffy, Bon Iver’s Matt McCaughan, Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, and Landlady’s Adam Schatz. Head of Roses follows the release of Like So Much Desire, her acclaimed digital EP released June 2020 on Sub Pop.
“More than anything she’s released before, Head of Roses makes room for the multiplicity of Wasner’s artistic voice. None of the singles sound anything alike — not the springy, off-kilter pop of ‘Two’ nor the slow-burning, psych-rock of ‘Price of Blue’ — and none of them quite prepare the listener for the gorgeously subdued second half of the album, which features several of the most stirring ballads Wasner has ever recorded. The common element holding all of these disparate parts together is her luminous, jewel-toned voice.” [Feature] - New York Times
“her second full-length outing, Head of Roses, is a triumphant signifier of professional and personal growth.” ★★★★ - The Independent
“An album that is as deeply introspective as it is creatively bold and ambitious.” [8/10]- Uncut
“[Head of Roses] sees her incorporating her multifarious musical styles into a bright fusion of organic, dreamy rock and electronic pop.” [“22 albums we can’t wait to hear in April”] - The AV Club\
“Head of Roses is no less powerful for its simplicity, as its songs move from hushed to explosive and back again, becoming more than the sum of their parts in the process.” [“The 10 Albums We’re Most Excited About in April”] - PASTE
“The best material from the North Carolina artist’s prolific musical universe in years.” - SF Chronicle
“On Head Of Roses Wasner still manages to deliver an album that feels both highly individual and effective in what it tries to do. It also subtly extends the sense of musical reinvention which has been ongoing since the direction-pivoting Shriek.” ★★★★ - MusicOMH
“Wasner’s sculpting of emotive music through sound and texture rather than key is special, and Head of Roses is by far her most successful rendering of it.” - The Line of Best
“Wasner’s command of grace for herself and others ultimately becomes a source of soothing as Head of Roses unfolds. Layers push aside to reveal a core scented with forgiveness and healing. Flock of Dimes has become the vehicle for Wasner’s most personal reflections, which makes it the one to treasure most.” - Under the Radar
“An empathic singer, whose supple vocal sounds are partly obscured here by loops and electronics or resonant layers of Eno’d guitars, which take the edge off this raw and heart-sore break-up LP.” - MOJO
Flock of Dimes Head of Roses
Tracklisting: 1. 2 Heads 2. Price of Blue 3. Two 4. Hard Way 5. Walking 6. Lightning 7. One More Hour 8. No Question 9. Awake for the Sunrise 10. Head of Roses
The Pope of Trash, John Waters, celebrates his 75th birthday today, April 22nd, 2021, by releasing “Prayer to Pasolini,” his tribute to the legendarily controversial Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. The digital release, available now at all digital music services, includes John’s “Prayer to Pasolini,” John speaking in tongues, and 12 additional audio clips of John sharing his thoughts on Pasolini’s work. A 7” vinyl version of “Prayer to Pasolini” will be released later this year as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 6; the 7” version is only available to current Singles Club subscribers, and will be limited to 1,000 copies (subscribe here!).
The single was recorded at a small park in the wetlands near Rome’s airport, where a monument stands in Pasolini’s honor. It was here that Pasolini was run over multiple times with his own car by a hustler, after having his testicles deliberately crushed by his murderer.
The recordings were made with Waters’ long-time colleague and friend, Grammy-winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott). That it happened in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis only made it more surreal.
Waters and company arrived to find the site fenced and seemingly padlocked. Fortuitously, Brennan had bought wire-cutting tools just for the occasion, but they were ultimately not needed.
As Brennan recorded industrial, wind, and bird sounds, John concentrated on the healing, nearly ironic religious experience of being there.
The area is industrialized, but remains potentially more primitive than during the Roman Empire era, when it acted as the main port. Some of its ruins still stand. During Pasolini’s neorealist heyday, prostitutes were drawn by the area’s remoteness. The prostitutes were nicknamed “fireflies,” for the image created as they puffed cigarettes in the dark.
Waters’ and Pasolini’s careers overlapped, with their most notorious films — Pink Flamingos and Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, respectively — being released and banned in the first half of the 1970s, in large part for featuring scenes of actors eating shit. Waters says that the only difference was that in Pink Flamingos (which pre-dates Pasolini’s Salo by more than three-and-a-half years), Divine ate actual shit, while the Italian actors used chocolate.
“But I don’t hold it against them,” Waters quips.
John Waters Prayer To Pasolini
7” Single Tracklisting 1. Prayer to Pasolini 2. Onsite at Pasolini’s Memorial in Italy 3. Speaking in Tongues (featuring sounds from Pasolini’s murder site)
Digital Tracklisting: 1. Prayer to Pasolini 2. Onsite at Pasolini’s Memorial in Italy 3. Speaking in Tongues (featuring sounds from Pasolini’s murder site) 4. Conspiracy Theories 5. Openly Gay 6. Eating Shit 7. Drive-in Theaters 8. Political Correctness 9. Anna Magnani 10. Casting Methods 11. Pasolini’s Artistry 12. Influence of Pasolini 13. News of Pasolini’s Death 14. The Neorealists
Japanese quartet CHAI present a new single/video, “PING PONG!,” from their forthcoming album, WINK, out May 21st on Sub Pop. The track is a laser beam ode to a social activity that CHAI love but cannot currently partake in. In Japan, CHAI would often play ping pong after visits to the public hot springs, called onsen. “PING PONG!” also features YMCK, who brought a gaming feel to the production, which CHAI wanted to match.“
CHAI elaborate: “We’re channeling our inner playful selves, challenging ourselves to fun, and bringing you that nostalgic-feel with this song! There’s just something about old video games that’s super cute, a little tacky, yet at the same time fancy. Something that you think is “old-school” but at the same time super refreshing. YMCK collaborated with us on this and created the ultimate 8bit World of CHAI!”
“The theme for PING PONG is exactly as is, ‘ping pong.’ In Japanese culture, there’s this routine where Hot Springs or ‘onsen’ and playing PING PONG go hand in hand.
When the four of us hit the hot springs, we always wear a Yukata (unlined Summer kimono), drink a cup of milk, and go right into some PING PONG! It’s very Japanese, something we don’t think exists overseas and that’s exactly what we want to share! You can hear it in the lyrics and you can feel it in the music video!”
YMCK adds: “It was our first time creating something from start to finish remotely but everything turned out amazing with each member’s character shining through!
Don’t miss this ever-so free and forever dancing world of CHAI!”
CHAI is MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI. Following the release of 2019’s PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, playing their high-energy and buoyant shows. They took quarantine as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Rather than having maximalist recordings like in the past, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music. WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as Ric Wilson. They draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI.
“One of CHAI’s greatest strengths is the Japanese band’s ability to weave between different genres, buoyed by their generous sense of humor and vibrantly catchy hooks” - Pitchfork
“challenging your expectations is a key tenet of this band.” - NPR Music
“the dreamier, more rhythmic approach [of ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun’] still makes room for delicious vocal melodies.” - Billboard
“It’s well-established that CHAI know how to amp things up, but ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun’ (off their new album WINK) proves that they’re equally delightful when they slow the groove down.” - The FADER
“[‘ACTION’ is] so far their biggest earworm in a catalog of songs that can get stuck in your head for weeks.” - Vice
“As demonstrated by its lead single ‘ACTION,’ the band’s heading in a vibier, more laidback direction. Their new track ‘Maybe Chocolate Chips’ is breathy and spacey and it features a guest spot from Chicago rapper Ric Wilson.” - Stereogum
Clipping has delivered an incredible at-home performance for NPR Music’s “Tiny Desk Meets SXSW” concert. The remote performance features, quite possibly, the tiniest desks to ever appear in the series, and includes highlights from the band’s acclaimed albums Visions of Bodies Being Burned (2020) and There Existed an Addiction to Blood (2019), along with their Wriggle EP (2016) and debut mixtape midcity (2013).
NPR Music says, “Leave it to Clipping to innovate around the central notion of the Tiny Desk; to take the series’ emphasis on close-up intimacy and transport it to new heights of, well, tininess. This is, after all, a band that contains multitudes. Producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes craft a bed of hip-hop, industrial music and noisy experimentalism, then set loose rapper Daveed Diggs, whose violent imagery summons ’90s horrorcore and a thousand bloody movies. The band’s last two album titles — There Existed an Addiction to Blood and Visions of Bodies Being Burned — offer up a sense of the vibe, but Diggs’ gift for rapid-fire wordplay also acts as a leavening agent (see NPR Music April 18th).”
The “Tiny Desk” concert was recorded, edited, and mixed by Clipping. It was directed and edited by Cristina Bercovitz, who also fabricated the tiny furniture for the performance. The footage was filmed by Bercovitz, Erin Bates, and Daveed Diggs, and also features additional drums by Chukwudi Hodge.
New York Times says of the performance, “The avant-hip-hop group led by the “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs appeared in a showcase selected by NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, and took “tiny” as a video mandate. As Diggs rapped into a thumbnail-size microphone, his collaborators, Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, pretended (on split screens) to play miniature versions of (among other things) a laptop, guitar pedals and a windup music box, as the music warped itself from pink noise to music-box tinkle to industrial distortion to techno beats. No simulation was involved in the tour de force that was Diggs’s breakneck, virtually nonstop rapping, with rhymes that raced from free-associative wordplay to nightmare imagery to a grimly prescient 2019 song, ‘Nothing Is Safe.’ (see March 22nd Critics Notebook)”
Clipping’s Visions of Bodies Being Burned, There Existed an Addiction to Blood and Wriggle, are available now worldwide from Sub Pop. The self-released midcity is also available at all DSPs.
What people are saying about Clipping’s Visions of Bodies Being Burned: “If Run the Jewels are the polemicist poets facing America’s racial reckoning with six-foot-high spray-painted lettering, Clipping’s members are the academics connecting the horrors of the country’s past with thumbtacks and string…There Existed an Addiction to Blood” from 2019 and Visions of Bodies Being Burned — sew the group’s socially conscious threads through the gory narratives of ’90s “horrorcore” rap artists like Brotha Lynch Hung and Ganksta N-I-P.” - New York Times
“In the group’s ambitious new horror-themed album, Visions of Bodies Being Burned’ each song plays into one of the genre’s tropes, occasionally as an expression of radical politics. Nowhere is this overlap more effective than on “Pain Everyday,” which calls on the ghosts of lynching victims to haunt the descendants of their killers.” - The New Yorker
“Clipping’s finest refinement yet of their abrasive horror-rap.” ★★★★- MOJO
“Like a mind-melting experimental audiobook, fitting as comfortably in the club as it does in the headphones.” -The Wire
“Throughout, Clipping stun and shock with their most complete work to date, and Visions of Bodies Being Burned proves the group to be as dynamic as they are devastating (9/10).” - Loud & Quiet
“This is a once-in-a-generation band reaching their peak.” ★★★★ - DIY
“Few listening experiences this year are as gripping, visceral, and vivid as Visions of Bodies Being Burned (8.5./10).”- Under the Radar
“Visions of Bodies Being Burned is an album that will cement clipping.’s reputation as one of the most exciting and visionary groups working in music today (8/10).” - CLASH
“Not many acts find the midway point between Wolf Eyes and Three 6 Mafia, but by the time Visions reaches its apex at the brutal centerpiece “Looking Like Meat,” that’s exactly what clipping. sounds like. It’s a particularly threatening chapter of horrorcore that renders even some of the more severe acts that came before almost cartoonish by comparison.” ★★★★ - All Music
“Visions of Bodies Being Burned demands you wake up to the full horror – of clipping.’s fictional world, and the real world behind it.” ★★★★ - The Forty Five
“Visions of Bodies Being Burned reveals the records to be a kind of Frankenstein’s monster — assembled from many unlike parts and reanimated through three mad scientists’ passion. The result is a long anthology of love letters to the genre: raps to match a modern Poe, beats to leave the blood curdled, and a pair of back-to-back albums bisected, but with a still-beating heart.” - SF Weekly
“Clipping. delivers a series of captivating songs that are equally unsettling (8/10).” - RIFF Magazine
“In this diptych, I love both parts of the equation equally (get it?). I’ll pick up There Existed an Addiction To Blood if I want to feel mad and emboldened in my anger, set against the injustice of the world and our tiny piece of it. But it’s Visions that I’ll pick up if I want to feel that ghostly chill or just that indescribable feeling you get when faced with real fear, with the uncanny. Guttural fear. Visceral fear of the strange world you thought was familiar to you but turns out: you were wrong.” - Heavy Blog is Heavy
“Clipping. are the best, always outdoing themselves at every pass and that’s all you need to do to succeed in this life. Bra-fucking-vo.” - Everything is Noise
Clipping Visions of Bodies Being Burned
Tracklisting: 1. Intro 2. Say the Name 3. Wytchboard (Interlude)* 4. ‘96 Neve Campbell (feat. Cam & China) 5. Something Underneath 6. Make Them Dead 7. She Bad 8. Invocation (Interlude) (with Greg Stuart)* 9. Pain Everyday (with Michael Esposito) 10. Check the Lock 11. Looking Like Meat (feat. Ho99o9) 12. Drove (Interlude)* 13. Eaten Alive (with Jeff Parker & Ted Byrnes) 14. Body for the Pile (with Sickness) 15. Enlacing 16. Secret Piece *CD/digital/cassette-only tracks
In this time of Coronavirus, virtual learning/remote everything, and with the world seemingly forever in flux, we truly welcome the uplift and reprieve provided by our impressive and inspirational winners of the 2021 Sub Pop Loser Scholarship! The Losers who won this year are an extraordinary bunch. Our Loser Chooser (TM) scholarship
committee spent hours reading through hundreds of applications, and at the end of a very difficult decision-making process, we’ve come up with
three ultramega-OK, life-affirming scholarship winners. Congratulations and
heartfelt thanks to all who took the time to apply, you have brightened up some weird days.
First
up is Ashadé, a wonderful performer at Nova High School. We were completely blown away by Ashadé’s mental toughness and ability to create truly beautiful poetry, creative writing and performance art in spite of difficult circumstances. The writing samples that Ashadé provided were truly breathtaking and her original songs were too good to be true. We couldn’t believe how much her cup of talent overfloweth! Ashadé is a truly wonderful Loser who we are happy to crown a winner.
Next
up: Jonah, from the great state of Oregon! Jonah is a bright, shining star bringing joy, energy and social awareness to spaces that need a bit of fresh air. Through his stunning visual artwork Jonah is working to bring awareness and energy to uplift trans youth and immigrant artists. The thoughtful application Jonah submitted really reflected what it means to be a Loser, and that is to stand up and be who you want to be in spite of all expectations and perceived limitations. Jonah is breaking down walls and we couldn’t be happier to support him. What. A. Loser!
Finally, we were completely won over
by Taylor from Issaquah. As a teenager, Taylor has found more ways to support artists in need than most adults. Through her non-profit arts program Student Art Spaces, Taylor has helped remove financial barriers for emerging artists and given them a platform to be seen. Through lived experience as an artist Taylor saw how BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people were excluded from galleries. With a fistful of fliers and an audacious idea, Taylor managed to change the narrative to help support emerging and underrepresented artists from around the world. (Jeez, that sounds familiar…) We are thrilled to call Taylor a Loser winner.
Thanks for playing to all who applied, you are all an inspiration! And we can’t wait to see what’s ahead for all of you.
