News

Mess Esque, the heavenly duo of Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner, descend from their altostratus with a new single! "Let Me Know You" is out today with a music video from Denny Ryan.

With no guitars or drums anywhere in sight, just keyboards twinkling in stark space, Mess Esque assume an improbable new form on "Let Me Know You": the celestially curious star child, caught in the unfamiliar weight of a gravitational pull. Alone in a zone, Helen folkishly coos a... (read more)

As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. Theirs was not a perilous sea voyage — it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigated by Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, due out April 25: Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, Màiri and Alasdair’s long-overdue second collaboration together... (read more)

Introducing Sharpie Smile, Drag City's newest infatuation! A duo consisting of Dylan Hadley and Cole Berliner (formerly of Kamikaze Palm Tree), their dreamy debut single “Love or Worship” is out today for Valentine's Day, with a music video fitting the lush mood.

Pulling on the strings of heartache, "Love or Worship" is an ethereal pop track touching on misconceptions of love, devotion and fidelity. With spiralling synths and bright guitar chords, the track builds on itself leading... (read more)

Broadcasting from inside her own head, Eiko Ishibashi’s songs offer a chilling observation of a drastically-altering reality. On March 28, the accomplished keyboardist/multi-instrumental composer will release her sweeping new production, Antigone — her eagerly-awaited 4th album of traditional songcraft on Drag City, not counting last year’s award-winning Evil Does Not Exist soundtrack. Today, Eiko releases Antigone’s all-consuming opening track: “October”.

Antigone’s soaring opener launches with an orchestral-cum-concrète buildup that jumps abruptly into Eiko... (read more)

For over 25 years, Ben Chasny’s blend of folk, rock, and pop-baring teeth have stained, blackened, and transcended with otherworldly spirit. True to Six Organs' shifting sonic impermanence honed by decades of movement through touring, their latest stand-alone LP, Time Is Glass, captures Chasny once again in the intricate tangle of the fretboards, threading backward through time to form an intimate, acoustic, cosmic expression.

Live, this tour begins with Six Organs playing the length of Portugal in duet with Norberto Lobo... (read more)

For Translucence, out March 28th, is the debut album from Whitney Johnson & Lia Kohl. Their dialogue, found initially in free improvisation on viola and cello, has evolved over time into a neophonic orchestral expression: a living, breathing meditation in which layers of acoustic strings, synthesisers, field recordings, radio and sine waves illuminate and change each other as they twine and grow. Their first single, an excerpt of “73|74”, is out today.

This edit of “73|74” is a heady moment in the... (read more)

Hear that sound? It's a Whistle from Above, David Grubbs' new album coming out on Drag City next month! Yes! After sharing the lead single/video for “The Snake on Its Tail” this past December, Grubbs has a new song for us today: “Queen’s Side Eye”.

Opening with warm, folky arpeggiation, David swiftly introduces edits and variations into “Queen’s Side Eye” — he’s hardly done pursuing them down each path before turning and chasing after another set. It’s a taut, intensively scaled... (read more)

With the 2024 release of Locust Land, Bill MacKay discovered a territory all his own — and now he's returning to yours! Bill's bringing his bag and spreading new tunes throughout Eire and the UK, plus a sojourn to Paris, this March. Irish, Scottish and English folk, rock island dwellers, Parisien and Parisienne, come one, come all!

Bill MacKay's six-stringed transcendence has always translated into a striking live show, but with the breakthroughs Bill's made on Locust Land, the holy... (read more)

The fragmented shards from the history of punk rock are still being sourced! Thanks to the rediscovery of a long-lost cache of cassette tapes, Bag People can now be counted: the sounds of their feral stink sitting perfectly in the grime-streaked canon of NYC’s early-‘80s post-punk/no-wave era. Forty-some years later, Drag City unwraps Bag People’s brief but blistering run with a self-titled archival release coming out March 28.

Bag People were Chicagoans who outgrew their home in the maelstrom of the early 80s NYC... (read more)

In Space, out February 28, is Edith Frost's first album in two decades, breaking the silence with a way-out country soul expression charting a heartening renewal of commitment and form. Today, Edith releases the second single off In Space, "Nothing Comes Around".

Ruefully emoting from the confines of her introvert’s heart on "Nothing Comes Around", Edith traverses the frozen tundras of inertia that she encountered entirely too often during her isolation. At turns frustrated, resigned and afraid, Edith builds strength with... (read more)