On May 24th, Australian group Girl and Girl will release their vibrant debut full-length, Call A Doctor, on CD/LP/DSP via Virgin Australia (AU/NZ) and Sub Pop (ROW.)
Following the infectious lead single “Hello,” which recently peaked at #1 for two weeks in a row on the subModern Alternative Specialty Chart, comes an official video for their latest single, “Mother.”
Girl and Girl frontperson Kai James shares: “I wrote Mother about my beautiful mum and how our relationship has matured and evolved from my late teens to my mid-twenties. Shifting from this all-knowing being into something a bit more human. There’s beauty in that shift, relief at the fact that no one’s perfect, but then fear and doubt, too, as you step out and slowly learn to trust and back yourself.”
Mother was directed by Andy Freer and Dan Flood of the internationally acclaimed Australian theatre company Snuff Puppets. Click HERE to watch.
Call A Doctor is an unforgettable first bow from Girl and Girl, an audacious and aggressively tuneful blast of a record from this Australian four-piece garage rock outfit. The band is comprised of frontperson Kai James (singer, guitarist) and his Aunty Liss (drums), along with longtime friends Jayden Williams (guitar) and Fraser Bell (bass). Call A Doctor was recorded at Sundowner Sound in Melbourne, a two-story industrial complex where the band ate, slept, and made music in marathon sessions for two weeks straight with producer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, Julia Jacklin).
As previously announced, the band has confirmed North American & Australian tour dates, with additional appearances at Eurokennees in France and End of the Road in the UK. Girl and Girl are fresh off performances at this year’s SXSW Music Festival. Rolling Stone included the band in their Day 2 SXSW round-up and said: “every member of Girl and Girl is too young to have experienced the garage rock revivalism of Y2K firsthand, save Aunty Liss, the drummer who supports her nervy nephews in this band of Australian post-punk traditionalists. Fronted by the wiry Kai James — handsome and jittery, never reclusive — the group treated sacred post-punk texts as if they were a common language when they played the 13th Floor, giving their barbed hooks and sideways riffs real kick. They’re carrying a torch without succumbing to nostalgia or formalism, all because they’re intoxicated by the noise they make.”
The band will return to the States in late April for a North American tour supporting fellow Aussies Royel Otis. See below for a complete list of shows.
Thur. Apr. 04 - Gold Coast, QLD - Mo’s Desert Clubhouse Fri. Apr, 05 - Sunshine Coast, QLD - Sol Bar Sat. Apr. 06 - Brisbane, QLD - Black Bear Lodge Fri. Apr. 12 - Melbourne, VIC - The Tote Sat. Apr. 13 - Sydney, NSW - Lansdowne Sun. Apr. 14 - Wollongong, NSW - La La Las Tue. Apr. 23 - St. Paul, MN - Amsterdam Bar & Hall * WED. Apr. 24 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall * Fri. Apr. 26 - Toronto, ON - Longboat Hall * Sar. Apr. 27 - Columbus, OH - A&R Music Bar * Sun. Apr. 28 - Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop * Tue. Apr. 30 - New York, NY - Racket * Wed. May 01 - New York, NY - Racket * Thu. May 02 - Philadelphia, PA - Theater For The Living Arts * Fri. May 03 - Washington, DC - The Howard * Sat. May 04 - Carrboro, NC - Cats Cradle * Wed. May 08 - Austin, TX - The Parish * Thu. May 09 - Denton, TX - Rubber Gloves * Sat. May 11 -Denver, CO - The Perplexiplex at Meow Wolf * Wed. May 15 - Phoenix, AZ - Rebel Lounge * Thu. May 16 - Hollywood, CA - The Fonda Theater * Fri. May 17 - Santa Barbara, CA - Soho Restaurant & Music Club * Sat. May 18 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop * Mon. May 20 - Portland, OR - The Aladdin Theater * Tue. May 21 - Vancouver, BC - Fox Cabaret * Wed. May 22 - Seattle, WA - Neptune Theater * Thu. Jul. 04 - Cravanche, FR - Les Eurokennees Fri. Jul. 05 - Cravanche, FR - Les Eurokennees Sat. Jul. 06- Cravanche, FR - Les Eurokennees Sun. Jul. 07- Cravanche, FR - Les Eurokennees Thu. Aug. 29 - Dorset, UK - End Of The Road Fri. Aug. 30 - Dorset, UK - End Of The Road Sat. Aug. 31 - Dorset, UK -End Of The Road Sun. Sep. 01 - Dorset, UK -End Of The Road
* w/ Royel Otis
Call A Doctor is available to preorder now on CD/LP/DSPs from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers (US), select independent retail stores (EU/UK) & Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) will receive the Loser Edition on White vinyl. All colored vinyl versions are available while stock lasts.
Girl and Girl Call A Doctor
Track Listing: 1. INTRO 2. Call A Doctor 3. Hello 4. Maple Jean and the Anthropocene 5. Oh Boy! 6. Suffocate 7. Mother 8. You’ll Be Alright 9. Comfortable Friends 10. Our Love (Ours Only) 11. OUTRO
On April 12th, 2024, Sub Pop will release a new single from Chicago’s FACS. This new single features an exclusive, original A-side, “North America Endless,” and a cover of The Eurythmics’ song “Take Me to Your Heart” on the B-side. It is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide, and it comes on white vinyl. Watch the tense official video for “North America Endless” directed by Joshua Ford now.
FACS have been perfecting their brand of intense, cathartic art rock over the course of four ever-evolving albums. Beginning with 2018’s Negative Houses through 2021’s landmark Present Tense, the trio digs deep into the gaping maw of a black hole and pulls back whatever debris they can grasp onto. Their 2023 LP Still Life iDecay came as an addendum to their last album— a “post-event review,” if you will. The band is made up of Brian Case (90 Day Men, The Ponys, Disappears), Jonathan Van Herik (Disappears), and Noah Leger (Milemarker).
Case says of “North America Endless,” “We had been talking a lot about how to incorporate melody in a new way with the material we were starting to write after Still Life in Decay, and this was one of the first experiments with that. I had this inverted Polvo thing I had been playing around with that Jonathan married to a really nice Frippy sustained lead, and it kind of just wrote itself. Lyrically, it’s about the dissociation needed to live in this country and the powerlessness that can bring. Noah’s beat at the end of the song is one of my favorites from him.”
Regarding the cover of Eurythmics’ “Take Me to Your Heart,” Case says the song is “A band favorite, we’ve been kicking around a version of this since we first started FACS, but for some reason just got around to completing it now. This song has a lot of elements we keep in focus when we write - repetition, space, off-the-grid melodies, and mantra-like lyrics that can be construed in a few ways based on what perspective you view them from.”
On Friday, June 7th, Man Man will release their new album, Carrot On Strings, on CD/LP/DSPs worldwide through Sub Pop Records.
The album’s lead offering is “Iguana,” a track that Man Man’s Ryan Kattner (Honus Honus) says is a song that is “loosely inspired by Werner Herzog’s monologue at the end of ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams,’ the Flying Lizards, and every old leathery man in a Speedo.”
Man Man has also shared the funny accompanying video trailer for “Iguana,” which stars bandleader Kattner (as Gary, The Iguana), Derek Waters of Drunk History (as the Director), and Noland Anderson (as John Travolta). Watch and listen to the “Iguana” lyric video and its hilarious long-form trailer for the song now.
Carrot On Strings was recorded at Mant Sounds studio in Glassell Park, Los Angeles, and produced by Matt Schuessler, with whom Kattner had worked on a cover of Neu!’s “Super” for the seminal Krautrock band’s box set. He and the band knocked out the songs live (workshopped in front of live audiences while Man Man toured) over 5 days in August 2022, and then hashing other sonic ideas over the following months. “I wanted things to be loose,” Kattner shares. “My intention was just to knock it all out,” he says. He even recorded more than a few of the single-track vocals while reclining on a couch. “It’s pretty wild,” he says — “because, you know, it wasn’t actually wild at all. It was the first time I wasn’t sequestered in an isolation booth, extensive baffling keeping me apart from the rest of the music. Something about being in the mixing room, tracking vocals, songs blasting out of the monitors that just felt perfect for this particular album.”
Man Man is also announcing headlining North American dates supporting Carrot On Strings. These dates begin on Friday, June 7th, in Phoenix, AZ, and end on Saturday, July 20th, with a hometown release show in Los Angeles at the Echoplex. See below for a full list of shows.
Fri. Jun. 07 - Phoenix, AZ - The Rebel Lounge Sat. Jun. 08 - Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf Sun. Jun. 09 - Denver, CO - Globe Hall Tue. Jun. 11 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club Wed. Jun. 12 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall Thu. Jun. 13 - Louisville, KY - The Whirling Theater Fri. Jun. 14 - Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Small’s Theater Sat. Jun. 15 - Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts Sun. Jun. 16 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall Tue. Jun. 18 - New York, NY - Racket Wed. Jun. 19 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar Thu. Jun. 20 - Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall Fri. Jun. 21 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle Sat. Jun. 22 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade Mon. Jun. 24 - Baton Rouge, LA - Chelsea’s Live Tue. Jun. 25 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada Wed. Jun. 26 - Austin, TX - Parish Fri. Jun. 28 - Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole Sat. Jun. 29 - San Diego, CA - Casbah Thu. Jul. 11 - Morro Bay, CA - The Siren Fri. Jul. 12 - Sacramento, CA - Harlow’s Sat. Jul. 13 - Carson City, NV - Brewery Arts Center Tues. Jul. 16 - Seattle, WA - Neumos Wed. Jul. 17 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios Fri. Jul. 19 - San Francisco, CA - The Chapel Sat. Jul. 20 - Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
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.
About Man Man’s Carrot On Strings: When Man Man released its last album, “Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between,” frontman Honus Honus (né Ryan Kattner) was in a state of unrest, oscillating between hope and cynicism. Perhaps fittingly, the album ended up dropping during the pandemic. (We could all relate.) But much like that bizarre turn of global events, the ennui seems so distant now to Man Man’s creative force, whose revived sense of purpose washes through Carrot on Strings (out June 07, Sub Pop), his latest release, which radiates a mix of calm and confidence.
Kattner always embodied a wild-man pied-piper vibe: his melodic, art-rock output just unhinged enough that it was at once intriguing and angsty. He was so alluringly creative that you went along with it, even if you were never sure where Man Man would take you. Carrot on Strings is no less inventive, but its ethos is radical in context of the band’s two-decade, idiosyncratic career. “When I was younger, I would feed off of chaos. I would be upset and get drunk and smash chairs. Physically demonstrative of my emotions,” Kattner explains, “Now those chairs are in my head: It’s less of an outward projection, more of an interior monologue.”
The name “Carrot on Strings” came to Kattner while experimenting with the sound of someone munching on the vegetable, which you can hear in the cacophonous, almost similarly named title track. It refers to “the diagnosis of my career,” or how success always seemed to dangle uncertainly before him—life as a series of “almost maybe” opportunities to elevate things to a more sustainable tier. But listen intently, and you’ll hear a more content Kattner, making an uneasy peace with, “Life, as far as I’ve known it, has always been side hustles. Would it be great if I could go into a studio and record for a year without figuring out how to finance it? Yeah, it would be,” he says. “But ultimately, I need to keep making music because art is an extension of my psyche. It’s not about how I define myself or want to be perceived necessarily. It’s how I have learned to translate the palpitations of my heart. Or, simply put, I’d go insane without it.”
The unrest may have slightly lifted (chalk that up to fatherhood), but “Carrot on Strings” opener, the shot of scintillating adrenaline that is “Iguana,” clarifies that he’s still on a mission to traverse uncharted territory, even if it is total banger sing-along. The song melds Krautrock, dance music, no-wave, and even an homage to Old Yeller (the 1950s Disney film) sneaks in for good measure. Kattner, who penned the lyrics to “Iguana” while cycling through the hills of Los Angeles (“That’s how I found a lot of the songs, through looping…if you passed by me on the street, you probably thought I was a very unstable person, singing and workshopping ideas, but I guess in LA that kinda goes with the territory”), was inspired by director Werner Herzog’s somewhat mystical cave-painting documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. “In the last 10 minutes of it, he has this beautiful monologue about uncertainty and the universe, the evolution of self-consciousness, albino crocodiles. How nothing is real, nothing is certain. Here you have this relatively straightforward documentary about ancient cave paintings, and in the end, Herzog can’t escape himself from being himself, which in the end, why would you want to escape yourself anyway” he recalls, drawn to this outsider artist who infiltrated mainstream culture without compromising his impulses. With “Iguana,” Honus Honus continues, “I’m trying to write a very genre-specific song, but I can’t escape my own idiosyncratic pull into making it be something else or a combination of something else.”
Growing up with a father in the U.S. Air Force, Kattner lived an itinerant childhood that included a few pivotal years in Germany, where he honed in on an appreciation for out there German cinema and art. He’d go on to teach himself to play piano at age 22 by playing with drummers, developing a style more rhythm-based than chops heavy but was also equally focused on screenwriting, the craft he studied in art school along with playwriting. (He continues to more-than-dabble in the film industry with an acting role in the upcoming horror-comedy movie Destroy All Neighbors, for which he also served as composer; music supervising season 1 & 2 of the Interview With The Vampire AMC TV series; and shopping around, with director Matthew Goodhue, a script he wrote that he describes as a Wim Wenders road movie on acid.) “As a child I gravitated towards troublemakers but not necessarily out of rebellion but more likely because it simply seemed more interesting at the time,” yet, growing up as a multiracial Hapa kid (half Filipino, half white), “I didn’t have anyone else to relate to on that level until I discovered playing music in my early 20s. The artworld and especially underground music is scattered with people from all sorts of interesting and disparate backgrounds.”
Like “Iguana,” the spacious, indie-pop “Odyssey” is a slight nod to another of his German avant heroes, the filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder (also the musician’s professed style icon). “My melodies are typically born out of playing parts on repeat by myself,” he explains, “and pushing the boundaries of where my voice can go. Music and lyrics are birthed together, laborious but significant in that it instills a combined permeance. One fits into the other like a puzzle ring.” Meanwhile, “Blooodungeon” — a symbolic sexy, mutinous lovechild between Italo-disco legends La Bionda and the goth-rocker the Sisters of Mercy (or as Kattner puts it, “Dario Argento’s Goblin mixed with something from a ’90s Berlin leather bar”) — even finds him crooning suavely in German at one point. Sensing a theme yet?
All these journeys off the beaten path are underscored by a palpable ease that’s way less about the process and more about the outcome. “It’s never been a driving factor in my life as a performing artist but I’m truly at a point now where I don’t give a fuck about image or any of that stuff,” he says. “That’s not saying there isn’t care taken in aesthetics, presentation quality, truth, or the art itself. And it’s not about acquiescing. Making music, acting in people’s films, these things are just more fun to me these days, come more naturally. It doesn’t mean it’s easier. I wish it was! There’s still love, labor, and toil involved. And a reserved spot on the wall for banging my head in frustration.” This newfound looseness is imminently apparent on songs such as the twangy “Cherry Cowboy,” a lingering, ambling ode to the small Texas panhandle town where he was born, that is also loosely inspired by a Randy Newman ear worm from the 1986 comedy Three Amigos. By contrast, “Pack Your Bags,” is born to be a thumping stadium chant just waiting to be unleashed for consumption.
In a bid to not overthink anything (mindful that his last album took about seven agonizing years to make), he booked out five days in Mant Sounds studio in Glassell Park, Los Angeles and enlisted “very chill” producer Matt Schuessler, with whom he had worked on a cover of Neu!’s “Super” for the seminal Krautrock band’s box set. He and the band knocked out the songs live (workshopped in front of live audiences while Man Man toured) in 5 days and then hashed out other sonic ideas over the coming months. “I wanted things to be free. Loose. My intention was just to knock it all out and embrace whatever came from the sessions,” he says. He even recorded more than a few of the single-track vocals while reclining on a couch. “It’s pretty wild,” he says — because, you know, it wasn’t actually wild at all. It was the first time I wasn’t sequestered in an isolation booth, extensive baffling keeping me apart from the rest of the music. Or obsessed with stacking vocals. Something about being in the mixing room, tracking vocals, songs blasting out of the monitors that just felt perfect for this particular album.”
“Odyssey” considers Kattner’s transformation, his newly defined sense of self that distinguishes his outsize stage persona from the thoughtful, soulful guy he actually is. Before surmounting this identity crisis, he frequently faced bouts of severe depression and imposter syndrome. “I first got into music to escape from myself,” he says. “And now, it sounds so corny, but I have zero doubt that music ended up saving my life.”
So when you hear him croon on tracks such as the wistful meditation on humility “Mulholland Drive” or the cheeky-tableau “Cryptoad”, you’re actually hearing Kattner liberate himself. “Take me home,” he sings on the latter. ”This party sucks.” It’s his favorite song on the album. “I didn’t want to make an overtly heavy record. The world already has too much heaviness,” he explains. “We’re teetering on the brink of fascism, the planet is boiling, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. We don’t need to have another album that points that out with every breath.”
“On a cellular level, I’m not even the same person I was on my last album. This time around, I didn’t want to overthink it, or beat myself up too much about it,” he continues. “I think I spent the first 15 years of playing music, wanting to quit every day. And now…it just feels like a gift.”
On April 12th, METZ will release their prodigious new album, Up On Gravity Hill, via Sub Pop (World, ex-Canada) and Dine Alone (Canada.) Following the previously released tracks “99” and “Entwined (Street Light Buzz)” comes the album’s gorgeous closer “Light Your Way Home,” which features vocal contributions from Amber Webber of Black Mountain.
METZ frontman Alex Edkins shares, ” ’Light Your Way Home’ is definitely one of our favorites from Up On Gravity Hill. I was listening to lots of Jesu and Low (as I do most winters) when writing this one. Lyrically, it’s about missing your loved ones to the point of losing your grip on reality. We distorted and added a mechanical slap back to the drums to create a wild and huge sound. I love how big we got the production on this one. It’s like nothing we’ve ever made before, sonically or lyrically. Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) was so great to work with, and her voice just takes this song to another stratosphere. I think the video by Colin Medley perfectly captures the vibe and intent of the song.”
Click HERE to watch “Light Your Way Home, directed by Colin Medley.
As previously announced, METZ has headlining international tour dates scheduled supporting Up On Gravity Hill, with dates in North America from April 17th to May 17th and a run of UK and EU dates in the fall from November 3rd through November 29th. The band also has a series of UK and EU festival performances in August, including stops at The Green Man Festival in the UK, La Route Du Rock and Cabaret Vert Festival in France, and the Canela Party in Spain. See below for a full list of shows.
North America Wed. Apr. 17 - Boston, MA - Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre $ Fri. Apr. 19 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom $ Sat. Apr. 20 - Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts $ * Sun. Apr. 21 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar $ Tue. Apr. 23 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl $ Thu. Apr. 24 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn $ Fri. Apr. 25 - Fayetteville, AR - George’s Majestic Lounge $ Sat. Apr. 26 - Austin, TX - The Parish (Austin Psych Fest) $ Sun. Apr. 27 - Dallas, TX - Sons of Hermann Hall $ Mon. Apr. 29 - Sante Fe, NM - Meow Wolf $ Tues. Apr. 30 - Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar $ Wed. - May 01 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah $ Tue. May 02 - Los Angeles, CA - 1720 $ Wed. May 03 - San Jose, CA - The Ritz $ Thu. May 04 - San Francisco, CA - The Chapel $ Mon. May 06 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom $ Tue. May 07 - Seattle, WA - Neumos $ Fri. May 10 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club $ Sat. May 11 - Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge $ Thu. May 16 - Montreal, QC - Theatre Fairmount $ Sat. May 17 - Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall $
$ w/ Gouge Away * w/ Rid of Me
UK/EU Thu. Aug. 15 - Crickhowell, UK - Green Man Festival Fri. Aug. 16 - St Malo, FR La Route Du Rock Sat. Aug. 17 - Charleville-Mezières, FR - Cabaret Vert Festival Fri. Aug. 23 - Malaga, ES - Canela Party Sat. Nov. 02 - Rennes, FR – L’Antipode Sun. Nov. 03 - La Rochelle, FR - La Sirène Mon. Nov. 04 - Paris, FR - La Maroquinerie Tue. Nov. 05 - Clermont-Ferrand, FR - La Coopérative de Mai Wed. Nov. 06 - Lyon, FR - Le Transbordeur Thu. Nov. 07 - Zurich, CH - Bogen F Sat. Nov. 09 - Prague, CZ - Futurum Sun. Nov. 10 - Budapest, HU - Turbina Tue. Nov. 12 - Krakow, PL - Klub Zascianek Wed. Nov. 13 - Warsaw, PL - Klub Hydrozagadka Sat. Nov. 16 - Berlin, DE - Hole44 Mon. Nov. 18 - Copenhagen, DK - Loppen Tue. Nov. 19 - Hamburg, DE - Hafenklang Wed. Nov. 20 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Thu. Nov. 21 - Groningen, NL - Vera Fri. Nov. 22- Antwerp, BE - Trix Sat. Nov. 23 - Lille, FR - L’Aéronef Mon. Nov. 25 - Birmingham, UK - Hare & Hounds % Tue. Nov. 26 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club % Wed. Nov. 27 - Birkenhead, UK - Future Yard % Thu. Nov. 28 - Bristol, UK - Strange Brew % Fri. Nov. 29 - London, UK - Village Underground %
% THE NONE
Up On Gravity Hill is available to preorder now on CD/LP/DSPs from Sub Pop. LP preorders in North America from megamart.subpop.com, and select independent retailers will receive the Loser Edition on clear w/ red splatter vinyl. LP orders from independent retail stores & Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) in the UK and Europe will receive the Loser Edition on Opaque Yellow vinyl. And, a half-red/half-black LP is available in Canada from Dine Alone. All colored vinyl versions are available while stock lasts.
METZ Up On Gravity Hill
Tracklisting: 1. No Reservation / Love Comes Crashing 2. Glass Eye 3. Entwined (Street Light Buzz) 4. 99 5. Superior Mirage 6. Wound Tight 7. Never Still Again 8. Light Your Way Home
Tomorrow, Friday, March 15th, marks the release of Boeckner!, the self-titled full-length debut and solo outing from Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Operators, Divine Fits). Today, he is sharing the Poltergeist-meets-Beetlejuice-inspired official video for “Dead Tourists,” an album standout co-written by Jeremy Gaudet of labelmates Kiwi Jr. The nightmarish video was directed by Sasha Solodukhina, and stars Boeckner as a ghostly character haunted by an array of unfortunate souls.
Boeckner! is an eight-song, thirty-two-minute collection featuring the highlights “Lose,” “Euphoria,” and “Dead Tourists,” and was produced, engineered, and mixed by Randall Dunn at Circular Ruin in New York City and mastered by Heba Kadry in Brooklyn, New York.
Boeckner’s international touring in support of the album begins with a west coast leg on April 24th in Los Angeles, CA, at The Lodge Room and runs through Thursday, June 27th, with a just-announced headline show in London, UK at Oslo.
Boeckner will perform material from the new album and highlights from Operators, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, and Wolf Parade catalogs. The band lineup for all North American dates will include Sam Brown (Operators, Divine Fits, New Bomb Turks) on drums, Alex Fischel (Spoon, Divine Fits) on keys, and Brad Laner (Medicine, Savage Republic) on guitar.
Wed. Apr. 24 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room Thu. Apr. 25 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent Sun. Apr. 28 - Portland, OR - Polaris Hall Mon. Apr. 29 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile Tue. Apr. 30 - Vancouver, BC - The Pearl on Granville Wed. Jun. 05 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Thu. Jun. 06 - Detroit, MI - El Club Fri. Jun. 07 - Toronto, ON - The Horseshoe Tavern Sat. Jun. 08 - Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz Mon. Jun. 10 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall Wed. Jun. 12 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg Thu. Jun. 13 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s Fri. Jun. 14 - Washington, DC - The Atlantis Thu. Jun. 27 - London, UK - Oslo
Boeckner! is available on CD/LP/DSPs from Sub Pop. LP purchases of the album from megamart.subpop.com, Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart), select independent retailers in North America and the UK and Europe, and Boeckner’s live dates will receive the limited Loser Edition on Orange vinyl. A special Jalapeno Green vinyl edition is also available from select retailers in Canada (all color vinyl options available while supplies last).
Boeckner Boeckner!
Tracklisting: 1. Lose 2. Ghost in the Mirror 3. Wrong 4. Don’t Worry Baby 5. Dead Tourists 6. Return to Life 7. Euphoria 8. Holy Is the Night
Last month, Amen Dunes – the project of New York City-based Damon McMahon – announced his long-awaited new album, Death Jokes, will be released May 10th via Sub Pop. Today, McMahon unveils a new single, “Boys,” accompanied by a video directed by Steven Brahms and single art by the late photographer Ross McDonnell, which also appears on the album’s back cover. “Boys” follows the “delicately lilting stunner” (PAPER) “Purple Land,” which, as Stereogum praised, “feels like alternate-dimension folk-rock…as if built from extraterrestrial material.”
Death Jokes marks Amen Dunes’ first record since 2018’s Freedom, named a “best album of the decade” by Pitchfork. Instead of embarking on the eerie, modern blend of folk and blues for which he’s known, McMahon decided to become a beginner again, immersing himself in the fundamentals of both piano and 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.
“Boys” was first written by McMahon in 2015 while on tour in Sicily, originally beginning as a pop-punk song before morphing into improvised electronic music: frenetic drum machines and samples of sirens, field recordings, and raves layered on top of McMahon’s double-tracked voice and guitar. McMahon explains: “‘Boys’ is another interstitial character portrait, this time about outcasts, ‘bad kids,’ and seeing things from their side: ‘Everything you’ve done, it’s been done to you too.’”
The “Boys” video, directed by Steven Brahms, focuses on innate destructive tendencies that McMahon explores throughout Death Jokes. “We only had one shot to destroy the room,” says Brahms. “The guys in the video gave us such an authentic look and flow. Everyone on the crew was buzzing after the shoot and we knew we had something special. Destruction can be very cathartic.”
Of the song’s single art by Ross McDonnell, McMahon elaborates: “I fell in love with Ross’ photos of boys in Ireland while making Death Jokes and he was generous enough to let me use this picture. The image felt tragic and humorous at the same time, much like these songs. Ross was a bold, adventurous, and wild artist: the kind I aspire to be. Just as this album was close to being finished, Ross tragically passed away swimming in the Atlantic. He was 43. Rest in Peace.”
While creating Death Jokes, McMahon struggled to find others who understood his unorthodox methods, this “loose, wild, self-propelled approach” that signaled a new direction for Amen Dunes. After two years and twenty-one failed collaborations, he made meaningful connections with a handful of talented artists and was able to create the profound collaborations he had been searching for. The jazz bassist Sam Wilkes appears on a trio of songs, producers Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Kwake Bass (Tirzah, Dean Blunt) provided tracks on several others; sessions with Panoram and Money Mark also ended up in the final version of Death Jokes.
On most songs, McMahon incorporated sounds, talking, and music pilfered from YouTube. The vast collage of samples include an interview with J Dilla, recordings from Type O Negative and Coil, a lyre performance of the oldest written song in human history, protest chants, a grunting powerlifter, and bits of stand-up from Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and others, as “thought provocation and irritant.”
The songs on Death Jokes almost seem to foresee the pandemic, but they’re more about the lingering effects those years have had on all of us, spiritually and emotionally. Their meaning transformed as the pandemic went on: at first they were reflections on our attachment to form, and to ourselves, and then they shifted into solemn indictments of our culture’s blind spots as we misjudge and attack, our veiled self-centeredness and self-importance masquerading as morality.
Amen Dunes will be playing concerts and festivals in select cities throughout the US, UK and Europe. A full list of dates is below and tickets are on sale now.
