News

Four years sit between Stateless and we will be wherever the fires are lit, the latest full album expression from acclaimed guitarist Tashi Dorji arriving November 22 on Drag City. These ten songs, as ever, are all improvised, utilizing different guitar preparations — tape for muting, metal for buzz, alternate tunings, inspirations from all over — to form a “sort of a sequel” to his 2020 album, in Tashi’s words. Still, there are no rules. With today’s announcement, Tashireleases the first single... (read more)

The “Great Escape Artist” is back — no, not THAT one, dude’s dead! We’re talking about Papa M (AKA David Pajo), and HE’s talking ’bout Harry Houdini. At least in the title of this record, anyway: Ballads of Harry Houdini. Six years since his last LP, the all-acoustic A Broke Moon Rises, Papa M rolls into the shred zone with a fresh, fine and fat-assed set of songs — and just SIX of ‘em, so you know they’re some groovers —... (read more)

This past July, YTI⅃AƎЯ stretched and made way to Resuscitate!, a live Bill Callahan record taped at Chicago’s Thalia Hall in March 2023 with the might of Matt Kinsey on guitar, Dustin Laurenzi on tenor sax, and Jim White on the kit. Today, we’ve got sights on “Coyotes” with a new visualizer filmed by Bill!

Bill — who’s just landed for a multi-day solo residency in the UK and Europe, kicking off tomorrow — shot this footage while flying, in a plane,... (read more)

On October 25, Drag City and Soccer Club Club are excited to drop Lesley Arfin’s first graphic art collection: a hardcover book of her drawings and paintings entitled Tickle Me. Best known as a comedian, a writer, and a producer with a remarkable ability to channel the heaviest of feels, Lesley’s new book offers her glittery reflections on gender, weather, mistakes, feminism, fantasy, failure, and nostalgia across 54 full-color pages of watercolor, gauche, acrylic, fiber, stickers and collage.

Perhaps you first... (read more)

Picking up the pieces of the picked-up pieces, Wand ride on, baby. It’s only three months since they dropped the incredible mass of Vertigo upon the world… but WHAT? Here’s more! One: a new 12” EP plating the pre-release single “Help Desk” alongside “Goldfish”, a bonus dose of oceanic luminescence from Vertigo — plus three remixes from Beat Detectives, Dean Spunt and Dead Rider for good measure. Two: an LP release of the archival In a Capsule Underground, containing demos and unreleased songs... (read more)

The warmth of this summer may be fading, but the light of Jill Fraser continues to pour in! Today, the electronic composer releases “Beautiful Summer”, a 1904 hymn read anew by machines of the future that serves as the second and final single off her forthcoming album, Earthly Pleasures.

On “Beautiful Summer”, Jill’s Serge and Prism modular units offer luminous bell tones and chimes to build her arrangement up towards the heavens, placing the notes in alternative sequences of time and harmonic... (read more)

Anthony Moore’s post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright-unknown quantity, achieves another dimensional plane with Home of the Demo, out October 25 on Drag City. This third archival release from his personal tape library triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased OUT (1976, officially issued 2020) and the new wave-adjacent Flying Doesn’t Help (1979, reissued 2022), finding Anthony’s early/mid-80s compositions drifting whimsically into the actual mainstream. With today’s news, the single “Earthbound Misfit” releases from Anthony’s... (read more)

Uploading into the ether with remarkable speed, here comes Dean Spunt’s loaded-down new LP! Basic Editions, out September 27, is the No Age artisan’s latest solo work, humming and blipping with Y2K-era digital modules and celestial soundscapes to achieve a post-existence state of ambient chaos. Today, Dean’s hitting you with another ping: a new single/video, “Confusion Is SysEx”, is now online!

To boot up “Confusion Is SysEx”, hard edits of aquatic synth thunderheads and crumpled balls of digi-junk bop up slowly,... (read more)

Whitney Johnson, known separately and together as Matchess, delve deeper into their material history of reproduction with two new singles today: “Dafni” and “Death in Trafo (or, The Crater)", off their forthcoming alter-ego albums Hav and Stena. Two deeply enigmatic encounters from each individual, the dueling nature of these separate works from Whitney and Matchess arrive together on September 27th.

The Whitney Johnson track, “Dafni”, selects frequencies and waveforms with body-aligning level of precision, using a flow of sine waves, marimba, viola, Arp... (read more)

With the release of Locust Land this past May, Bill MacKay's discovered a territory all his own — and now he's heading to yours! Following a swig of dates overseas, Bill's bringing his bag and spreading new tunes throughout the West n' Midwest this October. California folk, Milwaukeeans, Rock Island dwellers, Kenosha kind: 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)