News

NEWS : FRI, MAR 29, 2024 at 7:00 AM

Shabazz Palaces Exotic Birds Of Prey Is Out Now Worldwide From Sub Pop

Shabazz Palaces takes a darkly aquatic dive in the official video for “Goat Me (feat. Cobra Coil)” from Exotic Birds of Prey, his new, seven-song mini-album for 2024, out now worldwide from Sub Pop.
 
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 and Irene Barber (“Angela”), Lavarr the Starr (“Take Me To Your Leader”), Japreme Magnetic (“Myths of the Occult”), OC Notes (“Well Known Nobody”), the aforementioned Cobra Coil, and Purple Tape Nate (“Exotic Birds of Prey”).
 
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.
 
Next week, Shabazz Palaces will appear at My Morning Jacket’s “One Big Holiday” at Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, April 4th-7th, 2024. Later that month, Shabazz Palaces’ European and UK dates in support of Robed in Rareness and Exotic Birds of Prey begin April 27th in Paris, France at Le Petit Bain and currently end May 22nd in Braga, PT at Gnration.
 
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
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
 
Exotic Birds of Prey and Robed in Rareness are now available on CD/LP from Sub Pop. LP orders 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.
 
What people are saying about Shabazz Palaces:
There’s a deeply inclusive feel to Butler’s latest project, with a series of guest vocalists who bring lyrical light to the mission. The warp-speed hi-hats and forbidding synths of ‘Exotic BOP’ prompt Purple Tape Nate to offer commentary about smartphones organizing human thoughts; Butler’s alias Lavarr The Starr glides through the unabashedly ‘80s electro workout ‘Take Me To Your Leader’; and Stas THEE Boss joins Irene Barber on the interstellar P-funk bass of ‘Angela.’” [Exotic Birds of Prey] - Bandcamp
 
“This group is inquisitive as ever….Founder Ishmael Butler, formerly of the jazz rap group Digable Planets, has always been trying to commune with the future…and some of these songs are in dialogue with his past, which can be just as thrilling.” [Exotic Birds of Prey] - NPR Music
 
“Shabazz Palaces remains in a universe of his own with Exotic Birds of Prey, his second mini album in five months, following October’s Robed In Rareness…Sometimes it feels more like experimental electronic music with some rapping than rap music with electronic production. Whatever you call it, it’s a total trip.”- Brooklyn Vegan
 
Exotic Birds of Prey sounds like it’s broadcasting live from an unknown galaxy, giving us an idea of what music will sound like on other planets in the future while nodding knowingly to some of Earth’s most exciting sounds of the past.” - All Music
 
“Exotic Birds of Prey is an ambitious release even for an artist who has built a discography of mind-altering rhymes and face-melting instrumentals, in just seven songs Shabazz Palaces is able to fit entire character arcs and head-spinning sonic twists.” - GLIDE
 
“His eighth LP with Sub Pop, Exotic Birds of Prey conjures another heady brew of synth-soaked experimental rap that suffuses Sun Ra’s celestial reach with P-Funk’s acid-fried grit. Drenched in Afrofuturist psych, Butler’s spaced-out production explores the uncharted terrain of experimental hip-hop with a kaleidoscopic set of seven songs that viscously stick and gel to each other, enveloped in gelatinous bass, trippy beats, and omnipotent command.” - Still Listening
 
“Shabazz Palaces — Ishmael Butler from Digable Planets — sets up a sci-fi scenario in “Take Me to Your Leader”…He and a guest rapper, Lavarr the Starr, have to convince a powerful, mysterious queen that “our race deserves to survive.” Amid blipping electronics and slow-pulsing bass, with voices warped by echoes and effects, they set out a strategy of gifts, philosophizing, seduction and “a steady-bumping beat she can freak with.” [“Take Me To Your Leader”] - “The Playlist” - New York Times
 
“…a psychedelic six-minute synth-funk meditation. This kind of spaced-out electro inevitably recalls Kraftwerk, Egyptian Lover, and the primordial Detroit-radio soup that eventually led to the birth of techno.” [“Take Me To Your Leader”] - STEREOGUM
 
“…digital jazz drumming, a slinky bass line, a denaturing vocal loop, soft-spoken bars from Stas THEE Boss that evoke Butler’s fellow Digable Planet Ladybug Mecca before moving into less charted territory later in the track, and eerie, sing-song interludes from Dust Moth’s Irene Barber.”  [“Angela”] - The FADER
 
“…a cinematic joint with the most refreshingly straightforward rapping on the entire album.” [“Myths of the Occult”] - SLANT
 
“…heady, psychedelic” [“Angela”] - Brooklyn Vegan
 
“Stas THEE Boss and Irene Barber lend their voices to this funked-out space-age track, which feels a little bit like g-funk on the moon. It’s a cosmic groove that has vibes for days, a concise jam that could keep going for twice as long and I’d be just fine with that.” [“Angela”] - TREBLE
 
“Trippy and funked out” [“Angela”] - Gorilla vs Bear


Shabazz Palaces
Exotic Birds Of Prey
 
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)


Shabazz Palaces
Robed in Rareness
 
Tracklisting:
1. Binoculars (feat. Royce The Choice)  
2. Woke Up In A Dream (feat. Lil Tracy) 
3. P Kicking G (feat. Porter Ray)     
4. Cinnamon Bun (feat. Lavarr the Starr)
5. Scarface Mace (feat. O Finess)  
6. Gel Bait (feat. Geechi Suede)     
7. Hustle Crossers

Posted by Abbie Gobeli

NEWS : THU, MAR 28, 2024 at 7:00 AM

Sub Pop To Release Patrick Shiroishi’s “A Sparrow in a Swallow’s Nest (with Paloma by Emma Ruth Rundle)” b/w “The Light is Not Afraid” Worldwide On April 12th

On April 12th, 2024, Sub Pop will release a new 7” single from Los Angeles-based musician Patrick Shiroishi. This new single features an exclusive, original A side, “A Sparrow in a Swallow’s Nest,” which features Emma Ruth Rundle reciting her poem, “Paloma,” backed with a new original, “The Light is Not Afraid,” featuring Patrick on vocals. it will be limited to 1,000 copies and available on orange vinyl.
 
Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer who is perhaps best known for his extensive and incredibly intense work with the saxophone. Over the last decade he has established himself as one of the premier improvising musicians in Los Angeles, playing solo and in numerous collaborative projects. Shiroishi may well be considered a foundational player in the city’s vast musical expanse. He has presented work and performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Museum of Surgical Sciences, and has toured around the world in various solo and band configurations including as a member of the Armed, contemporary classical ensemble Wild Up, and Upsilon Acrux.
 
Patrick Shiroishi’s “Sparrow in a Swallow’s Nest (Feat. Emma Ruth Rundle)” b/w “The Light is Not Afraid” can now be preordered at megamart.subpop.comselect independent retailers in North America, and Bandcamp.


Patrick Shiroishi
“A Sparrow in a Swallow’s Nest (Feat. Emma Ruth Rundle)” b/w “The Light is Not Afraid”


Posted by Abbie Gobeli

NEWS : TUE, MAR 26, 2024 at 7:00 AM

Girl and Girl Share Official Video For “Mother” From Call A Doctor

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 UKGirl 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.comselect 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


Posted by Abbie Gobeli

NEWS : THU, MAR 21, 2024 at 7:00 AM

FACS to Release “North America Endless” b/w “Take Me to Your Heart” Single Worldwide on Sub Pop April 12th

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.”
 
FACS “North America Endless” b/w “Take Me to Your Heart” single can now be preordered at megamart.subpop.comselect independent retailers in North America, and Bandcamp.


 FACS

“North America Endless” b/w “Take Me To Your Heart” 

Posted by Abbie Gobeli

NEWS : WED, MAR 20, 2024 at 7:00 AM

Man Man Announces New Album Carrot On Strings Out June 7th

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.comselect 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.”


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


Posted by Abbie Gobeli