Bartees Strange Shares New Single ‘Backseat Banton’ after Performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live
BARTEES STRANGE
Shares New Single ‘Backseat Banton’
LISTEN HERE
Performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live
WATCH HERE
New Album
Horror Out This Friday
Photo credit: Elizabeth De La Piedra
“Bartees Strange is the Jordan Peele of indie rock – an auteur who directs everyday fears into his shapeshifting music.” – The Line of Best Fit
“An early album of the year contender… Expertly crafted and perfectly considered: this is music at its best.” – Dork *****
“Sophisticated rock… his best album yet.” – MOJO ****
“Steady and unflashy yet ready to stoke crescendos.” – The New York Times
“An incredible statement of intent, there are sonic departures and evolutions aplenty.” – Record Collector
“A chimeric blend of alt-rock, funk, hip-hop, and dance.” – New York Magazine
“Perfect… I could live in that groove forever.” – NPR Music
“Indie rock triumph.” – Rolling Stone
“Precocious in its energy and infectious in its tone.” – Clash
“Heading in a blockbuster direction.” – FADER
“A boundary-blurring indie rocker of the highest order.” – Stereogum
Today, Bartees Strange shares new single ‘Backseat Banton’ from his upcoming album Horror, out this Friday 14 February. The final track on the album, ‘Backseat Banton’ serves as a closing statement for Horror’s shadow essay – Banton meaning storyteller in Caribbean mythology. In life, Bartees cannot decide whether to be along for the ride or struggle to grasp the steering wheel. “Being scared has made me bigger now, bigger than I was. The darkest side of waking up is seeing who I’ve become. Grace is still a saviour, every moment that it comes. I’m reminded of a hopeful me and how fast that I could run.” Strange sings over a particularly tender moment in the song’s bopping alt-pop groove.
LISTEN HERE
‘Backseat Banton’ follows Horror singles ‘Wants Needs’, an uproarious confessional anthem, ‘Too Much’, a sonic and lyrical love letter to himself, ‘Sober’, an introspective ballad about falling short in a relationship, and the explosive lead single ‘Lie 95’.
Horror began at Strange’s home studio with an eye toward production. A session with Yves and Lawrence Rothman (Yves Tumor, Lady Gaga) provided a rhythmic and sonic backbone for chunks of the record. After Strange met Jack Antonoff and the pair became fast friends, Antonoff began work on Horror. The twosome finished the record together, working the songs raw, editing, arranging, and dressing them up in clothing bound to inspire fear. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music that soundtracked his childhood. Across the album’s 12 new tracks are genre-bending threads of the music his dad introduced him to – Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac and Teddy Pendergrass – merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house.
Since releasing his 2022 breakout album Farm to Table, Strange has toured alongside boygenius, Clairo, Dijon and The National. Recently, his music has been featured on multiple TV and film soundtracks including Apple TV’s The New Look and A24’s I Saw The TV Glow.
Born in Ipswich, England to a military father and opera-singer mother, Bartees Strange had a peripatetic childhood before eventually settling in Mustang, Oklahoma. Later, Bartees cut his teeth playing in hardcore bands in Washington D.C. and Brooklyn whilst working in the Barack Obama administration and the environmental justice movement.
Horror will be available digitally, on CD, standard black vinyl, transparent vinyl (indie retail andartist store only) and red vinyl (Dinked exclusive edition) which will include a bonus 7” of new songs ‘Like This’ and ‘Pigs Fly’. For order information, head HERE.
Bartees Strange will celebrate the release of Horror with a handful of February headline shows, including a date at London’s Oslo on 26 February. The list of dates is below, and for more information and tickets, head HERE.
13 February – LOS ANGELES, CA, USA, Paramount
15 February – WASHINGTON, DC, USA, 9:30 Club
19 February – NEW YORK, NY, USA, Bowery Ballroom
21 February – NEW YORK, NY, USA, Rough Trade [6pm in-store]
26 February – LONDON, UK, Oslo
1 March – BERLIN, DE, Rough Trade Berlin [8pm in-store]
17 March – SALT LAKE CITY, UT, USA, Kilby Block Party
4AD 0746
14 February 2025
Formats: Digital, CD, Standard Black LP, Transparent LP (Artist Store & Indie Retail), Red LP (Dinked)
Tracklist:
1. Too Much
2. Hit It Quit It
3. Sober
4. Baltimore
5. Lie 95
6. Wants Needs
7. Lovers
8. Doomsday Buttercup
9. 17
10. Loop Defenders
11. Norf Gun
12. Backseat Banton