On August 30th, Mudhoney will embark on a 33-date EU & UK run supporting their acclaimed 2023 long-player Plastic Eternity. The band will play shows in Paris, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Berlin, and London on this extensive run of dates. Ending on Oct. 6th in Groningen, NL. See below for a full list of shows.
Fri. Aug. 30 - Schorndorf, DE - Club Manufaktur Sat. Aug. 31 - Den Haag, NL - Den Paard van Troje Sun. Sep. 01 - Maastricht, NL - Bruis Festival at Muziekgieterij Tue. Sep. 03 - Paris, FR - Le Trabendo Wed. Sep. 04 - Toulouse, FR - Le Bikini Thu. Sep. 05 - Valencia, ES - 16 Toneladas Fri. Sep. 06 - Donostia-San Sebastian, ES - Boga Boga Festival at AIETEKO PARKEA Sat. Sep. 07 - A’Coruña, ES - Playa Club Sun. Sep. 08 - Madrid, ES - Lula Club Mon. Sep. 09 - Barcelona, ES - Razzmatazz 2 Wed. Sep.11 - Rome, It - Largo Thu. Sep.12 - Firenze, IT - Viper Theatre Fri. Sep.13 - Milan, IT - Santeria Social Club Sat. Sep.14 - Pordenone , IT - Capitol Club Sun. Sep.15 - Zagreb, HR - Tvornica Kulture Mon. Sep.16 - Rijeka, HR - Pogon Kulture Tue. Sep.17 - Belgrade, Rs - Dorcol Platz Thur. Sep.19 - Brno, CZ - Fleda Club Fri. Sep. 20 - Warsaw, PL - Proxima Sat. Sep. 21 - Vienna, AT - Arena Sun. Sep. 22 - Munich, DE - Strom Mon. Sep. 23 - Berlin, DE- SO36 Klub Wed. Sep. 25 - Hamburg, DE - KNUST Thu. Sep. 26 - Cologne, DE - Gebaeude 9 Fri. Sep. 27 - Brighton - UK - Concorde 2 Sat. Sep. 28 - Manchester, UK - New Century Hall Sun. Sep. 29 - Glasgow, UK - St. Luke’s Tue. Oct. 01 - Bristol, UK - O2 Academy Bristol Wed. Oct. 02 - London, UK - Electric Ballroom Thu. Oct. 03 - Saint-Germain-en-Laye, FR - Association La Clef Fri. Oct. 04 - Brussels, BE - Orangerie at Botanique Sat. Oct. 05 - Eindhoven, NL - Come As You Are Festival at Effenaar Sun. Oct. 06 - Groningen, NL - Vera
Plastic Eternity received accolades from the likes of MOJO, Louder Than War, The Big Takeover, FLOOD, CREEM, New Noise, and Bandcamp, who described the record as “…a ripper that reaffirms their place in the annals of American hardcore and punk rock.”
Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm was recently interviewed on the popular podcast 24 Question Party People, where he discussed the Seattle sewage tunnel-boring machine named after his band, surfing at Kelly Slater’s ranch, being radicalized by KISS and Aerosmith, seeing Robert Goulet at the airport and hanging out backstage with Dave Matthews. What the? You can listen here.
2024 is also the 35th anniversary of the band’s essential self-titled classic, Mudhoney. Sub Pop is repressing the record on clear vinyl with an added mix of blue, white, and purple this fall to celebrate.
What people are saying about Mudhoney:
“Plastic Eternity has Mudhoney sounding as intense as ever “ - The Big Takeover
“Thirteen sustainable hits from Seattle’s super-fuzz perennials” - [4 out of 5] MOJO
“…enthralling garage-psych delight” - [5 out of 5] Louder Than War
Tracklisting: 1. Souvenir of My Trip 2. Almost Everything 3. Cascades of Crap 4. Flush the Fascists 5. Move Under 6. Severed Dreams in the Sleeper Cell 7. Here Comes the Flood 8. Human Stock Capital 9. Tom Herman’s Hermits 10. One or Two 11. Cry Me an Atmospheric River 12. Plasticity 13. Little Dogs
Today, May 24th, Australian group Girl and Girl are releasing their vibrant debut full-length, Call A Doctor, on CD/LP/DSP via Virgin Australia (AU/NZ) and Sub Pop (ROW.) 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).
Following the release of “Hello,” “Mother,” and “Oh Boy!” comes a new video Directed by Tayla Lauren for the self-titled track “Call A Doctor.”
Frontman Kai James shares on the track/video: “For me, ‘Call a Doctor’ needed to be as dramatic and silly and over the top as possible. I needed to trick myself into a deep dive of a lot of very confronting thoughts and feelings, it was the only way I could honestly express and move through them. I like the idea of it playing out like that from an audience’s perspective, too, you don’t realize what’s happening till 2 or 3 listens in, and by then, it’s already too late; you’re self-reflecting and growing as a person, haha sucker.”
The band just concluded a 20-date North American run opening for Royel Otis, which ended yesterday in Seattle, WA. They will perform tonight at 7:00 PM at Easy Street Records in West Seattle, with additional AU, UK & EU performances this Summer and Fall. See below for a complete list of shows.
Fri. May 26 - Seattle, WA - Easy Street Records (FREE) Fri. Jul. 05- Belfort, FR - Les Eurokennees Festival Sat. Jul. 06 - Hyeres , FR - Midi Fest Tue. Jul. 09th - Dorset - UK - Academy Bournemouth $ Wed. Jul. 10th - Oxford. UK - Academy 2 $ Thu. Jul. 11th - Sheffield, UK - Foundry $ Fri. Jul. 12th - Liverpool, UK - Arts Club $ Fri. Aug. 02 - Gold Coast, AU - Mos Desert Clubhouse Sat. Aug. 03 - Brisbane, AU - Outpost Fri. Aug. 09 - Sydney, AU - Waywards Sat. Aug. 10 - Melbourne, AU - Howler Fri. Aug. 30th - Brighton, UK - Brighton Psych Fest Sat. Aug. 31- Manchester, UK - Manchester Psych Fest Sun. Sep. 01 - Dorset, UK - End of the Road Tue. Sep. 03 - London, UK - George Tavern Wed. Sep. 04 - Bristol, UK - Louisiana Fri. Sep. 06 - Asten, NL - Misty Fields Festival Mon. Sep. 09 - Paris, FR - Point Ephemere Fri. Sep. 13th - Haldern, DE - Haldern Pop Bar Sat. Sep. 14th - Munich, DE - Strom Sun. Sep. 15th - Berlin, DE - Lark Mon. Sep. 16th - Cologne, DE - MTC Wed. Sep. 18 - Copenhagen, DK - Loppen Wed. Sep. 18-Sun Sep. 21 - Hamburg, DE - Reeperbahn Festival
$ w/ ROYEL OTIS
“Girl and Girl recall the stalwarts of 2010s garage rock, their affinity with jangly guitars and buoyant rhythms undercut by feverishly intense playing and a cloying sense of claustrophobia.” - DIY
“A fantastic debut from a sparkly and singular new band.” - NME
“…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.” - [Best of SXSW 2024] RollingStone
“Emotional mayhem that’s relatable, and very catchy.” - Rolling Stone (AU)
“Brisbane four-piece Girl and Girl are ones to watch in the world of sharp-tongued raucous-riffed garage rock…Girl and Girl’s all too rare multigenerational collaboration brings a fresh angle on the post-Strokes garage rock sound.” - KUTX Radio
“There’s something special about this group…Their music has a raw and unfiltered feeling which elevates it far above your run-of-the-mill “indie” and gives it a near-euphoric flavour.” - [“Hello”] Life Without Andy
“A perfect dose of indie – punk rock at its best.” - [“Hello”] Happy Mag
“A warped mix of Talking Heads, Rolling Blackouts and bits of post-punk but led by a man with a mullet and one of their aunts plays drums in the band!” - [SXSW Review] BBC 6 Music with Steve Lamacq
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
Today, Monday, March 4th, Shabazz Palaces is sharing “Take Me To Your Leader” a Kraftwerk-esque jam featuring Ishmael Butler’s alter ego Lavarr the Starr, and is the closing track from Exotic Birds of Prey, his forthcoming seven-song mini-album.
Exotic… will be available on CD/LP/DSPs March 29th worldwide from Sub Pop, and is the follow-up to Robed in Rareness, his well-received album from October 2023. Robed is available now on DSPs but will also be available on CD/LP formats on March 29th, 2024.
Shabazz Palaces has announced European and UK dates in support of Robed in Rareness and Exotic Birds of Prey, which begin April 27th in Paris, France at Le Petit Bain and currently end May 22nd in Braga, PT at Gnration. Preceding these dates, Shabazz Palaces will also appear at My Morning Jacket’s “One Big Holiday” at Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, April 4th-7th, 2024.
Sat. Apr. 27 - Paris, FR - Le Petit Bain Tue. Apr. 30 - Lille, FR - Aeronef Wed. May 01 - Brussels, BE - AB Club Thu. May 02 - Ramsgate, UK - Music Hall in Fri. May 03 - Dublin, IE - Sugar Club Sat. May 04 - Leeds, UK - Headrow House Sun. May 05 - Manchester, UK - YES Pink Room Mon. May 06 - Brighton, UK - Patterns Tue. May 07 - London, UK - Village Underground Thu. May 09 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Sat. May 11 - Copenhagen, DK - Huset Sun. May 12 - Hamburg, DE - Turmzimmer Mon. May 13 - Berlin, DE - Frannz Club Tue. May 14 - Prague, CZ - Meet Factory Thu. May 16 - Geneva, CH - L’Usine Sun. May 19 - San Sebastian, ES - Dabadaba Mon. May 20 - Madrid, ES - Cafe Berlin Tue. May 21 - Lisbon, PT - B. Leza Wed. May 22 - Braga, PT - Gnration
Shabazz Palaces is masterminded by vocalist and producer Ismael Butler, whose unstinting drive to reimagine hip-hop – even as he enjoys his fifth decade on Earth – remains undimmed.
Exotic Birds of Prey furthers the modus operandi of its predecessor, Robed in Rareness – a respectful eye on the past, an embrace of an ever-evolving present, and its feet are firmly planted in the future. Where Robed… warped sounds like shoegaze and ambient music into the Shabazz Palaces multiverse, Exotic… cross-pollinates these elements with twisted electro and funk vibes.
This new endeavor features collaborations with the likes of Stas THEE Boss, Irene Barber, the aforementioned Lavarr the Starr, Japreme Magnetic, OC Notes, Cobra Coil, and Purple Tape Nate.
Exotic Birds of Prey was produced by Shabazz Palaces, mixed by Erik Blood, and engineered by Ishmael Butler and Blood at Studio4 West in Venice, California, with mastering by Warren Defever at Third Man Mastering.
Exotic Birds of Prey and Robed in Rareness are now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders for each release in North America from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser Editions for Exotic Birds of Prey on Translucent White vinyl and Robed in Rareness on Translucent Ruby vinyl.
In the UK and Europe, LP orders from Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) and independent retail stores will receive the Loser Editions for Exotic Birds of Prey on Cream White vinyl and Robed in Rareness on Red vinyl.
NPR Music called Robedin Rareness “Enchanting and subversive…” while Pitchfork offered this, “The futurism of Shabazz Palaces has always been interwoven with the past and present, their songs scintillating tapestries of old-school shit talk, proggy psychedelia, and melodic flossing. Robed in Rareness is draped in this multiplicity as Butler and a team of close collaborators swagger across eras of rap.”
Tracklisting 1. Exotic BOP (feat. Purple Tape Nate) 2. Angela (feat. Stas THEE Boss & Irene Barber) 3. Myths Of The Occult (feat. Japreme Magnetic) 4. Goat Me (feat. Cobra Coil) 5. Well Known Nobody (feat. OCnotes) 6. Synth Dirt 7. Take Me To Your Leader (feat. Lavarr the Starr)
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
La Luz - the band led by Shana Cleveland – has released a gorgeous new single today, “I’ll Go With You.” La Luz is at their dreamiest here — with sparkly instrumentals and soothing vocals, “I’ll Go With You” is a moment of tranquility. The new track is off their forthcoming album News of The Universe, out May 24th via Sub Pop, and follows the two previously released singles “Strange World” (which Uproxx deemed “futuristic”) and most recently, “Poppies” of which Austin Town Hall said, “there was something truly majestic in Shana Cleveland’s vocal performance.” Fans can pre-order the album HERE.
“This song is heavily influenced by Yanti Bersaudara, a group of Indonesian sisters who released some of my very favorite music originally released in the mid 60s and early 70s,” says lead singer Shana Cleveland on the new single. “Lyrically, this song is a retelling of a dream I had one night when I had gone to bed with the melody of this song in my head. I had some different words in mind, but this sweet little romance dream took over” she continues. Listen/share “I’ll Go With You” here.
With a credo adapted from science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, an album title from a collection of metaphysical poetry, and an expansion in consciousness brought on by personal crisis, News of the Universe finds guitarist and songwriter Cleveland embracing a changing world with unconditional love. News of the Universe is also a record born of calamity, a work of dark, beautiful psychedelia reflecting Cleveland’s experience of having her world blown apart by a breast cancer diagnosis just two years after the birth of her son.
La Luz will be touring North America, Europe, and the UK in support of News of the Universe, and the first run of dates will kick off May 23 in Barcelona. The band’s first show stateside is Record Release Party on May 30 at The Crocodile in Seattle, WA. Their touring goes into full swing starting on September 26 with a show in Chicago, IL, stopping at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere on October 9, before concluding with a 2-night run at Lodge Room in Los Angeles, CA, on November 8 and 9. All shows are listed below.
Formed by Cleveland in 2012, La Luz is beloved for their ability to balance bedlam and bliss, each new record another fine-tuning of the band’s mix of swaggering riffs with angelic vocals borrowed from doo-wop and folk; a band so reliably great that it makes the huge step forward in confidence and sheer musicality that is News of the Universe all the more formidable. Cleveland, also a writer and painter, has developed into a truly original songwriter with her own canon of haunted psychedelia that, in recent years, has drawn upon the changing landscape around her rural California home for inspiration, notably on last year’s critically acclaimed solo release, Manzanita, a magical realist documentation of her pregnancy and early motherhood that appeared on many year-end lists.
Sonically, the record is all urgency. Songs trip over themselves as if trying to outrun the apocalypse. The powerful sense of openness that permeates News of the Universe is at least partially due to the fact that it is a record made entirely by women—from the performing, writing, and producing all the way through to the recording, engineering, and mastering. “There is something inherently and simultaneously sweet and brutal about womanhood,” says Cleveland. “That is something I hear on this record.”
Working with producer Maryam Qudus (Spacemoth), the all-female environment allowed Cleveland to feel safe tapping into difficult places and expressing hard emotions women are socialized to suppress. Unashamedly vulnerable, unabashedly feminine, and undeniably triumphant, News of the Universe is another knockout record from a band so reliably great that it has perhaps led people to overlook how pioneering La Luz really are: women of color in indie music forging their own path by following their own artistic star into galaxies beyond current musical trends, always led by an earnest belief in the cosmic power of love and a great riff. Never is that more true than on News of the Universe, which might be La Luz’s most brutal record to date but also their most blissful. After everything, how could it not?
La Luz Tour Dates
05/23 Barcelona, ES @ Sala Upload
05/24 Madrid, ES @ Tomavistas Festival
05/25 London, UK @ Wide Awake Festival
05/30 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile (Record Release Show)
07/27 Portland, OR @ Project Pabst
08/30 Brighton, UK @ Brighton Psych Fest
08/31 Manchester, UK @ Manchester Psych Fest
09/01 Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh Psych Fest
09/03 Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
09/05 Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
09/06 Sart-Messire-Guillaume, BE @ SMG Music Fest
09/07 Asten-Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
09/08 Amsterdam, NL @ Indiestadt x Sugar Mountain @ Paradiso
09/10 Cologne, DE @ Bumann & SOHN
09/11 Hamburg, DE @ Prinzenbar
09/12 Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
09/13 Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
09/14 Zürich, DE @ Bogen
09/26 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
09/27 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
09/28 St. Paul, MM @ Turf Club
09/30 St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
10/01 Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
10/02 Nashville, TN @ The End
10/03 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade - Purgatory
10/04 Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
10/05 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall
10/06 Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
10/08 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
10/09 Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere - Hall
10/10 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
10/11 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
10/12 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
10/13 Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch
10/28 Denver, CO @ Marquis
10/30 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10/31 Boise, ID @ The Olympic
11/03 Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
11/06 Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
11/07 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
11/08 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
11/09 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
News of the Universe is available to preorder now on CD/LP/DSPs from Sub Pop. The album can be pre-ordered in North America from megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers, and the band’s website, and in Europe and the UK from independent retail stores, and Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart), with vinyl available on limited variants. All colored vinyl versions are available while stock lasts.
“[Amen Dunes] has proven to be a fearless reinventer, a spiritually attuned songwriter, and a cerebral lyricist who’s well-primed to tell you something about yourself if you simply pay a visit to the flawed characters who inhabit his records” — Stereogum
Amen Dunes – the project of New York City-based Damon McMahon – unveils “Rugby Child,” the final single ahead of the release of Death Jokes, out this Friday via Sub Pop, following “Purple Land,” “Boys” and the album’s centerpiece, “Round the World.”
With deep kick drums and hi-hats underneath a serpentine guitar riff, “Rugby Child” explores the psychic dis-ease that affected us all at the height of the pandemic and one’s desire to break from this mortal coil. McMahon sings, “You hear that Annie died? / She was straight for fifty days / When they said to stay inside / She must’ve just gone crazy.” “The song was written in April 2020, and flips between memories of touring, and that present moment of spring,” McMahon explains. “A musician from New York I had known had just overdosed. He wasn’t named Annie, but she stands in for him out of respect.”
The “Rugby Child” video completes the Death Jokes trilogy of videos and is once again directed by McMahon’s ongoing collaborator Steven Brahms. Featuring McMahon and modern dancer Jennifer Florentio, the video was filmed in an abandoned detox center in Flatbush.
“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 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.
Following a New York City performance next week 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, including a festival performance at Outside Lands in San Francisco. A full list of dates is below and tickets are on sale here.
