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
Today, musician and actress Suki Waterhouse releases “My Fun” and “Faded,” a pair of sparkling new tunes that are out now worldwide on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
“My Fun” is an exuberant, Stones-y pop jam, while “Faded” is a sweet midtempo ballad, and each features colorful, stop motion-style animation visuals from Callum Scott-Dyson (Iron & Wine’s “Anyone’s Game”).
Callum says, “We went with a vibrant, fun, and choppy card cut stop motion animated style for these two videos, inspired by Monty Python and other great cut-out animators. I really enjoyed making them and working with Suki. The songs had a nice differentiation in vibe, so I went with super saturated and bright for ‘My Fun;’ and then a little more washed out for ‘Faded.’”
“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.
Suki Waterhouse will perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this Friday, April 12th, closing out the Gobi Stage at 10:30 pm. She will play again on Friday, April 19th (set time and stage TBD).
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.
Sub Pop is currently accepting resumes from energetic, responsible, detail-oriented, and dependable candidates for a Full-time sales clerk, mornings (6 am start time/benefits) and a Part-time sales clerk, nights and weekends (temp) at our terribly impressive store at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. This guy.
Responsibilities include:
• Greeting and assisting customers in a friendly manner. • Full compliance with Sea-Tac operation rules and strict TSA regulations and restrictions. • Efficient handling of cash and credit card transactions. • Ability to work collaboratively and communicate effectively. • Availability to work nights, weekends, and holidays. • Assisting in organizing and restocking the store. • Maintaining the general appearance of the store. • Contributing to the team retail effort by accomplishing related tasks as needed.
Qualified candidates will have:
• Previous experience in the retail environment. • Knowledge of the Sub Pop catalog, Pacific Northwest music, the Seattle music community, and the City of Seattle. • A friendly and enthusiastic disposition with customers and staff. • Strong and clear communication skills. • A general understanding of retail Point of Sale systems. • Flexibility in schedule and willingness to work early or late hours.
Store hours 7am-9 pm everyday / 6 am-9 pm starting June 1st
Salary: $20.00 an hour
Benefits: Competitive pay, flexible scheduling, paid time off, holiday pay, store discount, growth opportunities, and more!
Amen Dunes – the project of New York City-based Damon McMahon – releases “Round the World,” the centerpiece of new album, Death Jokes, out May 10th via Sub Pop, and announces a summer North American tour. “Round the World” is the album’s nine minute penultimate track and follows the “delicately lilting stunner” (PAPER) “Purple Land” and “Boys,” “an exciting step forward for Amen Dunes” (FADER). The video sees McMahon collaborating again with director Steven Brahms, who also directed the videos for Freedom’s “Believe” and “Miki Dora.”
“A daring turn in a different direction” (NPR Music) for Amen Dunes, Death Jokes marks his first record since 2018’s Freedom (named a “best album of the decade” by Pitchfork). Death Jokes is a major departure, an ambitious electronic album that sees McMahon immersing himself in the electronic music he’d grown up with at raves and clubs but never imagined himself able to make. For the first time since the project’s incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself and out sharply towards the world. Through samples and lyrics, the album plays like a scathing electronic essay on America’s culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism.
“Round the World” began to take shape with McMahon recording a voice memo in winter 2019 as he sang along to an improvised piano arrangement. The vocal came almost in full and was based around nine minutes of a constantly changing piano arrangement which took weeks to notate. McMahon couldn’t easily perform the piano part and tried to hire two different pianists to record it, but they weren’t able or willing. What first sounds like a heartbreak ballad — “Made up my mind/ I give up on you” — later warps into a ghostly dirge — “This world’s on fire/ Nothing seems true.” The haunted refrains of “round the world, round the world” and “let it rattle, let it rattle” sounded prophetic a few months later, when the pandemic took over around the world. The rest of the song features numerous samples, including a collection of Chilean protest recordings from the coup in 1973, a mash-up of Coil with Bill Monroe, Fairlight CMI string and horn, a slowed-down UK Garage track, and others. Country and folk music subtly appear throughout Death Jokes, and this song’s melody comes almost directly, and unconsciously, from the traditional song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket.”
One afternoon in July 2022 there was a massive thunderstorm in Woodstock, during which McMahon wrote and recorded the album’s title track, “Poor Cops,” and the final two minutes of “Round the World” all three of which contain the most significant samples on the record and speak most directly to the meaning of the album, which McMahon recently reflected on in the statement that follows:
Everybody wants everything to come so easily.
Everybody wants to be comfortable, but they’re so uncomfortable.
We have so much of everything that it means nothing.
We take so much that we get nothing at all.
Some of us find a way to have our voices heard, but most of us are just being used.
You think they’re hearing you, but they’re not.
You say be yourself, but you won’t break the rules.
Poor cops, don’t let them tell you what to do.
You would punch a lot harder if you stopped being so cynical.
Fuck when you fuck, punch when you punch, love when you say you love.
We talk about wanting inclusion, but we shout about it while we hide in our cells.
We talk about being manipulated, but we do so using their methods and means.
They want us to feel like we are heard, so they encourage us to attack each other.
They tell us self-obsession is self-expression.
You say no one cares about you, but you don’t care about them.
My songs are all death jokes, and will long outlive me.
They remind me not to take myself too seriously.
I barely wrote them anyway. So who am I kidding?
And when I break the rules and speak honestly to you because I love you, that joke might get me killed too.
There is more that’s tragic than what you think is tragic.
Wake up, live in love.
You say life is hard, but it’s a joke.
The world is not about to end, in fact it’s just beginning.
Following select shows in May and a summer tour of the UK and Europe, Amen Dunes will return to the US for an appearance at Pitchfork Music Festival in July and then embark on a North American tour in August. A full list of dates is below and tickets are on sale this Friday at 10am ET.
