Today, Thursday, April 18th, DEBBY FRIDAY shares “To The Dancefloor,” a new, high-powered anthem available worldwide on all DSPs through Sub Pop. The track, recorded in Toronto and Detroit, is co-produced by DEBBY FRIDAY, Graham Walsh, and Detroit’s rising ghettotech connoisseurs, HiTech.
“To The Dancefloor” is a cheeky hybrid of electronic music genres and FRIDAY’s first single release of the year. Its Sims-inspired official video, directed by DEBBY FRIDAY with camerawork by Stella Gigliotti, is a nod to online NPC trends and virtual reality games of the early 2000s.
Of the video, DEBBY says, “I <3 the internet. I got the idea from watching Youtubers and TikTokers and thinking about how I used to spend hours playing games like Sims 3 and IMVU.”
“To The Dancefloor” follows DEBBY FRIDAY’s 2023 release, GOOD LUCK, her acclaimed Polaris Music Prize-winning, full-length debut. The album was co-produced by DEBBY and Graham Walsh (METZ, Holy Fuck) at Candle Recording Studio in Toronto and mastered by Heba Kadry in New York. Following the Polaris win, she released the sprightly-paced “let u in” single that September.
DEBBY FRIDAY’s international tour schedule for 2024 resumes Friday, June 7th in St. Johns, Newfoundland at the Lawnya Vawnya Festival and currently runs through Thursday, August 29th - Sunday, September 1st in Dorset, UK at the End of the Road Festival. Please find a complete list of dates below.
Fri. Jun. 07 - St. Johns, NL - Lawnya Vawnya Festival
Sun. Jun. 23 - Vancouver, BC - Westward Music Festival
Fri. Jun. 28 - Toronto, ON - Toronto Pride
Fri. Jul. 19 - Sat. Jul. 21 - Yellowknife, NT - Folk On The Rocks
Fri. Aug. 02 - Katowice, PL - OFF Festival
Fri. Aug. 16 - Saint-Malo, FR - La Route De Rock
Thurs. Aug. 8 - Rees Haldern, DE - Haldern Pop Festival
Sat. Aug. 17- Sun. Aug. 18 - Hamburg, DE - MS Dockville
Sun. Aug. 18 - Pukkelpop Hasselt, BE - Pukkelpop
Thu. Aug. 29 - Sun. Sep. 01 - Dorset, UK - End of the Road Festival
Fri. Aug. 30 - Eindhoven, NL - Hit The City Festival
DEBBY FRIDAY’s “To The Dancefloor,” “let u in,” and GOOD LUCK are available now worldwide from Sub Pop.
Past praise for DEBBY FRIDAY:
“With perhaps the most confident and promising debut album of the year, the Toronto-based electronic musician Debby Friday creates an alluringly dark, industrial backdrop for her slinky self-mythologizing and galvanizing pep talks to herself. “Speak up, speak up, Friday Child,” she intones on the intention-setting opener. “Say what you came to say.” Does she ever.” [GOOD LUCK] “The Best Albums of 2023” - THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Album of the Week” [GOOD LUCK] - STEREOGUM
“GOOD LUCK is an assured and frequently surprising debut that feels like a trip into the lascivious, eclectic wormhole of Friday’s world – and with so much to take in, and so much fun to be had, you won’t want to leave.” 8/10 - CRACK
“DEBBY defies easy categorization, mixing rap, electro, post-punk, industrial, techno and more into a glitchy, bruising and bitcrushed blend that is fiery, magnetic and all her own.” [GOOD LUCK] - BROOKLYN VEGAN
“Album of the Week” [GOOD LUCK] - TREBLE
“There’s an extraordinary elasticity across GOOD LUCK’s
masterful production that makes repeated listens not just enjoyable but irresistible.” “8/10, Album of the Week” - LOUD & QUIET
“Fans of Azealia Banks, JPEGMAFIA, SZA, Yves Tumor, and even Nine Inch Nails could all find themselves at home in her world. And soon enough, with her innovation and confidence, it seems like the rest of the world will, too.” “The Rising Artists You Need To Know” - ALTERNATIVE PRESS
“Packed into a succinct, live-wire 33-minutes, GOOD LUCK is testament to how effectively Friday can capture life in all its dense, unpredictable emotions.” - CHICAGO READER
“Welcome to Planet Debby: If you wandered into the back room
at Empire Garage and Control Room at the right moment on Thursday afternoon, you found yourself in the middle of an interstellar rave in full swing. Toronto experimental artist Debby Friday was onstage, performing a thudding electro-rap song with hints of Azealia Banks and Donna Summer…Leaping off the stage into the small crowd, she demanded that they come closer — “I need your energy!” — and kept on chanting,
in a long vamp that bent space and time.” “Highlights from SXSW 23, Day Three” - Rolling Stone
“In contrast to the pulse-quickening tempos and noisy synths of her past music, her production is deft and graceful, with a skipping beat and cascading backing vocals. ‘Lady Friday/All you do is rеbel,’ Friday chastises herself—tough talk against a fragile, gorgeous sound.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] “Best New Track” - PITCHFORK
“One of the young year’s most audacious bangers” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - BILLBOARD
“Hyperpop can sometimes come off as abrasive but in the hands of Canadian singer DEBBY FRIDAY it’s soulful, even elegant.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - NYLON
“A graceful entrance into yet another territory: lush R&B”[“SO HARD TO TELL”] “Now Playing” - NPR MUSIC
On Friday, June 7th, Man Man will release their new album, Carrot On Strings, on CD/LP/DSPs worldwide through Sub Pop Records.
Following the album’s lead offering, “Iguana,” comes the group’s striking new video for “Tastes Like Metal,” which was Directed by illustrator and filmmaker Joe Cappa.
Man Man’s Ryan Kattner shares: “With a little luck, a time machine, and a more accessible band name and face, this song has the potential to be the minor radio hit that finally helps fulfill my dreams of making it big in Japan.”
ClickHEREto watch “Tastes Like Metal.” Disclaimer: Sub Pop and Man Man do not advocate or endorse the use of any of the drugs in this video.
As previously announced, Man Man has shared North American dates supporting Carrot On Strings. Click here for a complete list of shows.
Carrot On Strings is now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders in North America from megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers, and in the UK/Europe from Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) and select UK/EU independent retailers will receive the Loser Edition on Transparent Orange. All color vinyl versions are available while stock lasts.
Man Man
Carrot On Strings
Tracklisting: 1. Iguana 2. Cryptoad 3. Tastes Like Metal 4. Mongolian Spot 5. Blooddungeon 6. Carrots On Strings 7. Mulholland Drive 8. Pack Your Bags 9. Alibi 10. Cherry Cowboy 11. Odyssey
This past weekend, musician and actress Suki Waterhouse made her Coachella debut, headlining the Gobi Stage to a massive crowd of adoring fans. She premiered new songs live, delivered a spot-on Oasis cover, and even gave an adorable gender reveal on stage. You can now watch a live performance of “Faded,” her new song released last week worldwide on Sub Pop.
Of her Coachella set, Billboard said, “…She was embedded in one of the more luxurious sets the Gobi tent has likely ever seen (the aesthetic could perhaps best be described as “English teatime in the park”). In addition to performing fan-favorite tracks like “Johanna” and “Nostalgia” as well as newer songs like “Faded” and “OMG,” the singer-songwriter surprised the crowd by debuting a pitch-perfect cover of Oasis‘ “Don’t Look Back in Anger” so solid even the Brothers Gallagher themselves may have approved.”
Suki Waterhouse will perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, again closing out the Gobi Stage on Friday, April 19th.
Suki Waterhouse’s “Faded” was released with the ebullient “My Fun” late last week. Teen Vogue called the songs “vibey, summery, and chilled.” Rolling Stone said “‘My Fun’ is a laidback spring stunner, while ‘Faded’ is a mellow rocker backed by acoustic and strings. It features one hell of an opening from Waterhouse.” Meanwhile, PASTE included “My Fun” in its “Best New Songs” column, saying, “Beached out and carefree, Suki’s feel-good lyrics gleam through the bubblegum-sweet production.”
“My Fun” was composed by Suki Waterhouse, Natalie Findlay, and Jules Apollinaire, with lyrics by Waterhouse and Findlay, and produced by Apollinaire. “Faded” was composed by Waterhouse, Raj Jain, and Peter Labberton, with lyrics by Waterhouse and Jain, and produced by Jain, Labberton, Eli Hirsch, and apob. Both songs were mixed by Blue May and mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios. “My Fun” and “Faded” will be on her forthcoming album, due out later this year.
Later this summer, she’ll appear at Seattle’s Day In Day Out on Saturday, July 13th.
Suki Waterhouse has been working nonstop as a musician since the 2022 release of her Sub Pop debut, I Can’t Let Go. She followed the album with the standalone single and official video for “Nostalgia” and the Milk Teeth EP (featuring the Gold-certified single “Good Looking,” which went viral on TikTok and peaked at #1 on Spotify’s Viral USA Chart). In 2023, Suki released the single and official video for “To Love,” the song “Everyday’s A Lesson in Humility,” a summery collaboration with Belle and Sebastian, and in August, joined Local Natives on a reimagining of their single, “NYE.”
Last year, Suki played to some of the largest crowds of her career in South America (Lollapalooza in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile), the US (Governor’s Ball, Ohana, Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits Festivals), and Mexico (at Corona Capital). Suki also starred as Karen Sirko in “Daisy Jones & The Six,” the Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime Video limited series based on the popular book by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
On June 28th, Loma (Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, Jonathan Meiburg) will release How Will I Live Without A Body?, their third album. The eleven-track effort features the highlights “Pink Sky,” “Affinity,” and the moving first single and accompanying official video for “How It Starts,” directed by and starring Loma’s Emily Cross.
How Will I Live Without A Body? was produced and recorded by Loma in England, Texas, and Germany, mixed by Dan Duszynski and mastered by Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound in New York. All songs were composed by the group—with a few nudges from a unique AI (see below).
How Will I Live Without a Body? is a gorgeous, unique, and oddly comforting album about partnership, loss, regeneration, and fighting the feeling that we’re all in this alone. Many of its songs have a feeling of restless motion; faceless characters drift through meetings and partings, tangling together and slipping away.
Throughout, the core of Loma’s sound remains intact: earthy, organic and deeply human, anchored by Cross’s cool, clear voice. Loma’s previous album, Don’t Shy Away, was galvanized by the encouragement of Brian Eno. This time, they were inspired by another hero, Laurie Anderson, who offered a chance to work with an AI trained on her work. Meiburg sent two photos; Anderson’s AI responded with two haunting poems. “We used fragments of these poems in ‘How It Starts’ and ‘Affinity’,” he says. “And then Dan noticed that one of AI-Laurie’s lines, ‘How will I live without a body?’ would be a perfect name for the album, since we’d nearly lost sight of each other in the recording process.” [See longer bio below].
As for How Will I Live Without A Body?’s cover art, returning collaborator Lisa Cline took inspiration from the histories of “bog people,” human cadavers found naturally mummified in peat bogs. (From Wikipedia: “These “bodies” are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 8000 BCE and the Second World War.”).
How Will I Live Without A Body? is available to preorder on CD/LP/digitally worldwide from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com, and select independent stores in North America will receive the Loser edition on Transparent Smoke Vinyl. In the UK and Europe, LP preorders through Sub Pop’s new Mega Mart 2, and UK/EU Independent retailers will receive the Loser edition on Neon Orange Vinyl (All whilst stock lasts!)
About Loma’s How Will I Live Without A Body?:
“This is how it starts to move again”
January 2023, Dorset, UK. Snow is piled at the door, icy roads are closed, and Emily Cross is in a coffin—not a promising setting for a rebirth. But for Loma, this is where they bring their band back from the brink.
“It’s like a demon enters the room whenever we get together,” writer, singer, and instrumentalist Cross says of the struggle to bring new Loma music into the world. Following the release of their 2020 second album, Don’t Shy Away, Loma’s three members were cast around the globe, and the band—not for the first time—entered a deep sleep.
Multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Dan Duszynski remained in his studio in central Texas, but Cross, a UK citizen, moved to Dorset, and writer and instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg left the US for Germany to research a book. In the pandemic years, being in the same room was impossible, and attempts to start a new record faltered.
“We got lost,” admits Meiburg, “and stayed that way.” The trio’s personal lives diverged, and remote sessions didn’t gel; a post-pandemic reunion in Texas was cut to a few days by an illness, and a pile of half-finished tracks was an unruly mess. The following winter, in an attempt to salvage the record and the band, Cross suggested they regroup in the UK, in the tiny stone house—once a coffin-maker’s workshop—where she works as an end-of-life doula. With minimal recording gear and few instruments, Loma turned two whitewashed rooms into a makeshift studio, using a coffin woven from willow branches as a vocal booth.
It was a turning point. “There was a sense of, well, this is it,” Meiburg recalls. “And when the ice storm swept in I thought: here we go again, even the elements are against us. But sitting in our heavy coats around a little electric radiator, we realized how much we’d missed each other—and that just being together was precious.”
They scrapped much of what they’d made, and let a new place set a new course. The first two Loma albums featured the sounds of Texan animals and landscapes; this time, the one-lane roads, hedgerows and dark skies of Dorset gave the new songs an ineffable but unmistakable Englishness. The band used the ruin of a 12th-century chapel as a reverb chamber—surprising hillwalkers who peeked in to find them singing to no one—and the sounds of Cross’s chilly workshop wormed their way into the recording: a leaky pipe, a drummer’s brushes on a metal lampshade, voices left on an ancient answering machine.
What emerged was How Will I Live Without A Body?: a gorgeous, unique, and oddly comforting album about partnership, loss, regeneration, and fighting the feeling that we’re all in this alone. Many of its songs have a feeling of restless motion; faceless characters drift through meetings and partings, tangling together and slipping away. “I Swallowed A Stone” is like a nightmare with a happy ending; “How It Starts” and “Broken Doorbell” reflect on the challenge (and necessity) of wrestling with agoraphobia. Though the record nods to the trio’s separate lives— a German percussion ensemble, a pair of Texan owls, and the surf at Chesil Beach make guest appearances—the core of Loma’s sound remains intact: earthy, organic and deeply human, anchored by Cross’s cool, clear voice.
Most artists want their records to be listened to as a whole. But with Loma it’s particularly rewarding, and How Will I Live Without A Body? reveals itself more with every listen. Songs that begin as riddles swim into focus when listened to in sequence; images return and interact in unexpected ways, and something like a narrative begins to form. It’s also a record of two distinct halves: A compelling sense of wandering engulfs the A-side, as the trudging progress of opener ‘Please, Come In’ staggers and sways through succeeding tracks to the album’s centerpiece, ‘How It Starts’—which gathers strength and purpose, flooding the B-side with a hope that embraces darkness without surrendering to it.
Loma’s previous album, Don’t Shy Away, was galvanised by the unexpected encouragement (and eventual contributions) of Brian Eno. This time, they were inspired by another hero, Laurie Anderson, who offered a chance to work with an AI trained on her entire body of work. Meiburg sent a photo from his book-in-progress about the once and future life of Antarctica; Anderson’s AI responded with two haunting poems. “We used parts of them in a few songs,” he says. “And then Dan noticed that one of its lines, ‘How will I live without a body?’ would be a perfect name for the album, since we nearly lost sight of each other in the recording process.” Anderson, Meiburg adds, was happy for the band to use the title. “I think she was tickled that her AI doppelganger is running around naming other people’s records.”
But in the end, Loma’s efforts to reconnect with one another are the album’s central focus: What do you owe a shared past, when everyone and everything has changed? “Making this record tested us all,” says Duszynski. “I think that feeling was alchemized through the music.” Alchemized, because How Will I Live Without A Body? is by no means a stressed-out record: an undercurrent of deep calm runs through it. “Somehow, out of the chaos, we made something that sounds very relaxed,” Cross notes, mystified. But maybe ‘relaxed’ isn’t the right word. It’s more like a feeling of relief, of making it through a tough journey together. “I’ve never run a marathon,” Cross says. “But I can imagine it’s kind of what that feels like.” This is how it starts, to move again.
Past praise For Loma:
“Loma’s music unspools in vivid panoramas - sometimes downbeat and rainy, sometimes splashy and urgent, reminiscent of the mid-‘90s school of Bowery Electric post-rock.” - MOJO
“Gorgeous, otherworldly music” - STEREOGUM
“…the band builds out dazzling instrumental environments like dense, dynamic undergrowth. Synths and guitars intertwine, coiling into a labyrinthine backdrop as their edges blur.” - Pitchfork
Loma How Will I Live Without A Body?
Tracklisting 1. Please, Come In 2. Arrhythmia 3. Unbraiding 4. I Swallowed a Stone 5. How It Starts 6. Dark Trio 7. A Steady Mind 8. Pink Sky 9. Broken Doorbell 10. Affinity 11. Turnaround
Weyes Blood is sharing a new video for “Andromeda” from her acclaimed 2019 album on Sub Pop Titanic Rising in celebration of the album’s five-year anniversary.
The long-lost video was partially filmed in 2018 and wasn’t completed until 2024. Directed by Natalie Mering, Ambar Navarro, and Colton Stock. “Andromeda” stars Mering in multiple dimensions - as an astronaut and a mysteriously omniscient alien riding a meteor.
“Andromeda” is from Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood’s massively acclaimed 4th album, which ended up on over 100 year-end critics lists in 2019 and would further receive “Best of the Decade” inclusion from the likes of The AV Club, Brooklyn Vegan, PASTE, Pitchfork, and Uproxx. Titanic Rising has sold over 157k (consumption) since release, with “Andromeda” being streamed over 80 million times, making it Weyes Blood’s most popular track to date. Watch her Glastonbury performance of “Andromeda” filmed for BBC Music now.
Weyes Blood’s most recent release is the equally acclaimed 2022 album And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, also available now from Sub Pop.
Praise for Weyes Blood’s Titanic Rising: “Titanic Rising is a revelation.” ★★★★★ - MOJO
“She combats dread through empathetic songs that are propelled by a masterful understanding of lush, ’70s pop harmonics.” “The 200 Best Albums of 2010s” - Pitchfork
“For someone with a documented predilection for idiosyncrasy and experimentation, she sounds completely at ease in these songs, and ready for bigger things ahead.” “#1/The 50 Best Albums of 2019” - PASTE
“It’s a beautiful and potent mix, one Mering deftly subverts with hints of madness.” “25 Best Albums of 2019” - NPR Music