[Photo Credit: Helen Moga]

 After recently releasing their new album ’This Mess Is a Place’, Seattle pop-punk four piece Tacocat have just announced a UK tour for this August with shows in Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff, London & Brighton. ICYMI, you can see the video for album standout track “New World” now here.

When Seattle band Tacocat—vocalist Emily Nokes, bassist Bree McKenna, guitarist Eric Randall, and drummer Lelah Maupin—first started in 2007, the world they were responding to was vastly different from the current Seattle scene of diverse voices they’ve helped foster. It was a world of house shows, booking DIY tours on MySpace, and writing funny, deliriously catchy feminist pop-punk songs when feminism was the quickest way to alienate yourself from the then-en vogue garage-rock bros. Their lyrical honesty, humor, and hit-making sensibilities have built the band a fiercely devoted fanbase over the years, one that has followed them from basements to dive bars to sold-out shows at the Showbox. Every step along the way has been a seamless progression—from silly songs about Tonya Harding and psychic cats to calling out catcallers and poking fun at entitled weekend-warrior tech jerks on their last two records on Hardly Art, 2014’s NVM and 2016’s Lost Time.

 
This Mess Is a Place, Tacocat’s fourth full-length and first on Sub Pop, finds the band waking up the morning after the 2016 election and figuring out how to respond to a new reality where evil isn’t hiding under the surface at all—it’s front and center, with new tragedies and civil rights assaults filling up the scroll of the newsfeed every day.

See Tacocat live in the UK:

25 Aug – Glasgow, Scotland – Broadcast
27 Aug – Manchester, England – Gullivers
28 Aug – Cardiff, Wales – Clwb Ifor Bach
29 Aug – London, England – MOTH Club
30 Aug – Brighton, England – The Hope & Ruin
31 Aug – Paris, France – Supersonic
01 Sep – Brussels, Belgium – Botanique
03 Sep – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Merleyn
04 Sep – Groningen, Netherlands – Vera
05 Sep – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
06 Sep – Eindhoven, Netherlands – Alstadt
07 Sep – Rotterdam, Netherlands – Rotown
09 Sep – Nurenburg, Germany – Kantine
10 Sep – Berlin, Germany – Marie Antoinette
11 Sep – Hamburg, Germany – Goldener Salon (Hafenklang)
13 Sep – Copenhagen, Denmark – Loppen
14 Sep – Oslo, Norway – Revolver
15 Sep – Stockholm, Sweden – Obaren

Ticket links are here.

Available worldwide May 31st on Sub Pop.

[Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill]

On May 31st, The Gotobeds - Cary, TFP, Eli and Gavin - return to the fray with their third full length, Debt Begins at 30. The esprit de corps and anxiety-free joy that permeates their other LPs and EPs remains intact. The octane is high-test, the engine still has knocks and pings and the battery is overcharged. The Gotobeds - as Pittsburgh as it gets, the folk music of the Steel City - have more tar for us to swallow. Debt Begins at 30 is an old-fashioned blast furnace and the liquid iron flows. You can stream the band’s new record in its entirety now via Brooklyn Vegan. Click here to listen.

Debt Begins at 30 is out on LP/CD/digital and cassette Friday, May 31st, and it is available for preorder at the Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers in the US and select European and UK retailers will receive the limited, splatter blue-vinyl Loser Edition while supplies last.

The Gotobeds Tour Dates:

May 25 - Pittsburgh, PA - Babyland (album release show)
Jun. 20 - Pittsburgh, PA - Babyland %
Jun. 21 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village
Jun. 23 - Columbus, IL - Ace of Cups
Jul. 16 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle
Jul. 17 - Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool
Jul. 18 - D.C, Washington - Comet Ping Pong
Jul. 19 - Kingston, NY - Tubby’s
Aug. 01 - Bloomington, IN - Bishop
Aug. 02 - Nashville, TN - DRKMTTR
Aug. 05 - Dallas, TX - Ruins
Aug. 06 - Austin, TX - Vegas
Aug. 07 - Houston, TX - Satellite
Aug. 08 - New Orleans, LA - Santos
Aug. 09 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
Aug. 10 - Cincinnati, OH - NSYC
Oct. 17 - Millvale, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre ^
 
% w/ Lithics
^ w/ Mudhoney

Announces North American tour dates for 2019.

Rock provocateur Marika Hackman will release her highly anticipated new album Any Human Friend on 9th August via Sub Pop in North and South America and AMF Records for the rest of the world. Marika also unveils her slap-in-the-face, Will Hooper-directed (IDLES, APRE) video for current single“i’m not where you are.”

The FADER had this to say of the video, “Hackman is preparing to release Any Human Friend, the follow up to I’m Not Your Man and, if its lead single “i’m not where you are” is anything to go by, a record just as brazen as its predecessor. “i’m not where you are” is one of Hackman’s most darkly-toned tracks yet: an ode to emotional unavailability delivered with Hackman’s typically smooth hypnotic, vocals. “I’ve been trying to find the point in human contact,” Hackman sings over crunchy guitars and bright synths, before shrugging the whole thing off entirely: “I get bored like that.” (see video premiere May 21st).”

Marika Hackman Tour Dates

Marika Hackman international tour schedule in support of Any Human Friend begins for 2019 spans September 21st in Bristol, UK at Thekla and ends November 6th in West Hollywood, CA at The Roxy Theatre. Preceding the headlining fall dates are two UK festival appearances: June 1st at London’s All Points East and August 15th at Green Man Festival.

Jun. 01 - London, UK - All Points East
Aug.15 - Beacon Breacons, UK - Green Man Festival
Sep. 21 - Bristol, UK - Thekla
Sep. 23  - Glasgow, UK - Oran Mor
Sep. 24 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club
Sep. 25 - Manchester, UK - Band On The Wall 
Sep. 26 - London, UK - Islington Assembly Hall
Oct. 11 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
Oct. 12 - Durham, NC - The Pinhook
Oct. 13 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall
Oct. 14 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle
Oct. 15 - Brooklyn, NY - Elsewhere
Oct. 18 - Allston, MA - Great Scott
Oct. 19 - Portland, ME - Port City Music Hall
Oct. 20 - Montréal, QC - Bar Le ‘Ritz’ P.D.B.
Oct. 21  - Toronto, ON - The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
Oct. 23 - Columbus, OH - Ace of Cups
Oct. 24 - Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig
Oct. 25 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village
Oct. 26 - Milwaukee, WI - Back Room at Colectivo Coffee
Oct. 28 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry
Nov. 01 - Seattle, WA - Neumos
Nov. 04 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club
Nov. 06 - West Hollywood, CA - The Roxy Theatre

Any Human Friend

Any Human Friend was co-produced by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Let’s Eat Grandma) and Marika herself, and shows off a sharper and more liberated sound than ever before. Now available for preorder from Sub Pop: LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on Salmon-colored vinyl (while supplies last). There will also be a new t-shirt design available.

Cover art photography by Joost Vandebrug, inspired by Rineke Dijkstra (see “More on…” below).

Any Human Friend
Tracklisting:
 
1. wanderlust
2. the one
3. all night
4. blow
5. i’m not where you are
6. send my love
7. hand solo
8. conventional ride
9. come undone
10. hold on
11. any human friend

More on Marika Hackman’s Any Human Friend:
“hand solo,” “blow,” “conventional ride”—these are just a few of the cheeky offerings off Any Human Friend, the new album from rock provocateur Marika Hackman. “This whole record is me diving into myself and peeling back the skin further and further, exposing myself in quite a big way. It can be quite sexual,” Hackman says. “It’s blunt, but not offensive. It’s mischievous.” There’s also depth to her carnal knowledge: Any Human Friend (August 9th from Sub Pop Records in North and South America and AMF for the rest of the world) is ultimately about how, as she puts it, “We all have this lightness and darkness in us.” 

Hackman lifted the album’s title from a documentary about four-year-olds interacting with dementia patients in senior homes. At one point, two little girls confer about their experience there, with one musing on how it’s great to make “any human friend,” whether old or young. “When she said that it really touched a nerve in me,” says the London-based musician. “It’s that childlike view where we really accept people, are comfortable with their differences.” 

Such introspection has earned Hackman her name. Her folkie 2015 debut, We Slept at Last, was heralded for being nuanced and atmospheric. She really found her footing with her last release, I’m Not Your Man—which earned raves from The Guardian, Stereogum, and Pitchfork—and its sybaritic, swaggering hit “Boyfriend,” which boasts of seducing away a straight guy’s girlfriend. “Her tactile lyrics keep the songs melodically strong and full of surprises,” remarkedPitchfork. We’ll say! 

“I’m a hopeless romantic,” she explains. “I search for love and sexual experience, but also I’m terrified by it.” Hackman is a Rid of Me-era PJ Harvey for the inclusive generation: unbounded by musical genre, a preternatural lyricist and tunesmith who isn’t afraid to go there. (Even her cover art, which finds Hackman nearly nude while cradling a baby pig, is a nod to Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra’s unfiltered photos of mothers just after they gave birth.) To that end, “hand solo” extolls the virtues of masturbation and  features Hackman’s favorite line, “Under patriarchal law, I’m going to die a virgin.” The song “blow” paints a picture of social excess. And “conventional ride” thumbs its nose at heterosexual sex through “the trope a lot of gay women experience: sleeping with someone, then it becomes apparent you’re kind of an experiment.”

With Any Human Friend, boundaries are no longer an issue for her. “I sent ‘all night’ to my parents and they were quite shocked,” she says of the paean to the flesh, dressed as a sweetly harmonic track. “Why does it sound shocking coming out of my mouth? Women have sex with each other, and it seems to me we aren’t as freely allowed to discuss that as men are. But at no point am I disrespecting the women I’m having sex with. It can be fucking sexy without banging people over the head with a frying pan. It’s sexy sex.”

Sharing intimacies with her parents sorta makes sense when you consider she wrote “the one”—a portrait of the artist amid identity crisis—and several other songs in her bedroom at their house, where she crashed after a painful break-up with a longtime girlfriend. “‘send my love’ is a proper breakup song,” she says of the levitating, string-laden track. “I actually wrote that in a moment of grief. It’s a strange take on it because I’m imagining myself as my ex-girlfriend.” She penned its companion track, “i’m not where you are,” a melodic earworm about emotional detachment from relationships, roughly six months later.

“I think because my life was flipped upside down, it was taking me longer to write,” she says. “This was definitely the hardest process I’ve gone through to make a record.” She wrote the album over a year, recording a few songs at a time with co-producer David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx). “I stopped being able to sleep properly,” she says. “I was waking up in the middle of the night to write songs.”

But the longer recording process also meant that Hackman had the time to experiment in the studio, especially with electronic songs. She was inspired by Wrench’s vast synth collection, many of which she used throughout Any Human Friend (“the synths give the album a nice shine”), notably on “hold on,” a deep dive into ennui expressed as ethereal R&B. She also switched up drum rhythms and wrote songs on the bass, such as the upbeat, idiosyncratic “come undone” (working name: “Funky Little Thang”).

Hackman bookends Any Human Friend with some of her most unexpected musical turns. The first song she wrote, “the one” (technically its second track), is “probably the poppiest song I’ve ever written,” she says. “It’s about that weird feeling of starting the process again from scratch.” To that end, it features a riot grrrl Greek chorus hurling such insults at her as, “You’re such an attention whore!” The title track closes out the album and explores how, “when we’re interacting with people, it’s like holding a mirror up to yourself.” It’s a weightless coda that’s jazz-like in its layering of rhythmic sounds as if you’re leisurely sorting through Hackman’s headspace.

“The drive to do all this is all just about trying to work out what the fuck is in my brain,” she says, laughing. The dragon she’s chasing is a rarified peace that materializes after properly tortured herself. “I really did have a good time working on this album,” she says, reassuringly. “It’s just emotionally draining to write music and constantly tap into your psyche. No musician is writing music for themselves to listen to. It’s a dialogue, a conversation, a connection. I’m creating something for people to react to.”

‘Showboat Honey’ out July 12th worldwide on Sub Pop

Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey have delivered an official video for “Broken Mirror Pose,” a highlight from Showboat Honey, the group’s forthcoming album, out July 12th worldwide from Sub Pop. The performance-based visual was directed by the band. 
 
Craft had this to say of the visual, “We shot “Broken Mirror Pose” at Moonbase Studios, which is where we tracked the entire record ourselves! This one was 95% DIY, much like the album. I built out a room inside of the main studio room and my pal, Bryson Cone, showed me how to edit afterward, letting me take the wheel once I had a little know how.”

Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey Tour Dates

Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey are also announcing new headlining dates for 2019 in support of the album, which begin July 11th in Portland at Mississippi Studios and currently end on August 24th in San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord.

Jul. 11 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios 
Jul. 13 - Seattle, WA - Ballard Seafood Fest
Jul. 14 - Spokane, WA - The Bartlett
Jul. 15 - Billings, MT - Pub Station Taproom
Jul. 17 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club
Jul. 18 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
Jul. 19 - Louisville, KY - Jimmy Can’t Dance
Jul. 20 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
Jul. 22 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern
Jul. 23 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse
Jul. 24 - Allston, MA - Great Scott
Jul. 30 - Woodstock, NY - Colony
Aug. 01 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right
Aug. 02 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle
Aug. 04 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse
Aug. 05 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
Aug. 06 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theater Rooftop
Aug. 07 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
Aug. 08 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn
Aug. 09 - Nashville, TN - The Basement
Aug. 10 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s
Aug. 11 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks
Aug. 14 - Shreveport, LA - Minicine
Aug. 15 - Dallas, TX - Three Links
Aug. 16 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk
Aug. 18 - Phoenix, AZ - The Valley Bar
Aug. 19 - Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole
Aug. 22 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
Aug. 23 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan
Aug. 24 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord

 
Showboat Honey was recorded and produced by Kyle Craft, Kevin Clark, and Billy Slater at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. The album was mixed by Trevor Spencer and mastered by April Golden at Golden Mastering. 

Showboat Honey is now available for preorder through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on a clear blue translucent mix with spots red hi-melt (while supplies last).  There will also be a new T-shirt design available. 

Supports Kacey Musgraves US tour September 11th-21st

Presales are here: weyesblood.com/tour

[Photo Credit: Kathryn Vetter Miller]

Weyes Blood is extending her international tour schedule in support of Titanic Rising, her critically acclaimed new album, available now from Sub Pop. The  “Something to Believe Tour” begins August 7th in San Diego at The Irenic and ends November 17th in Oslo at Parkteatret.