Music Mavericks Blogazine

 

SLEATER-KINNEY  NEW ALBUM LITTLE ROPE OUT TODAY ON LOMA VISTA NORTH AMERICA TOUR KICKS OFF NEXT MONTH  Album Art Credit: Sophia Nahli Allison

Today, Sleater-Kinney release, Little Rope, their eleventh studio album and first for Loma Vista. The album was named one of the most anticipated releases of the year by Rolling Stone, NPR, Pitchfork, Vulture, Paste Magazine, them, Consequence, Esquire and more. Little Rope is one of the finest, most delicately layered records in the band’s 30-year career, as evidenced by the album’s singles “Hell,” “Say It Like You Mean It” and "Untidy Creature".  “It’s Little Rope release day! So grateful to share this music with you. A rope can be many things, it can hold us back or it can be a guide line through our most difficult night,” the band shared, “The songs, for us, always show us the way forward and we hope you will join us.” To call Little Rope flawless feels like an insult to its intent – it careens headfirst into flaw and brokenness – a meditation on what living in a world of perpetual crisis has done to us, and what we do to the world in return. On the surface, the album’s 10 songs veer from spare to anthemic, catchy to deliberately hard-turning. The New Yorker has also called it “Sleater-Kinney’s most tender album.” But beneath that are perhaps the most complex and subtle arrangements of any Sleater-Kinney record, and a lyrical and emotional compass pointed firmly in the direction of something both liberating and terrifying: the sense that the only way to gain control is to let it go. Album stand-outs like “Hunt You Down,” “Needlessly Wild,” and “Dress Yourself” showcase the album’s interplay of lyrical and musical moods, which give the record an immense depth. Even the catchiest hooks are hiding something. The opening riff on “Hunt You Down” sounds a warning that smashes against a chorus delivered with a hint of deceptive sweetness: “The thing you fear the most will hunt you down” – a line Brownstein heard in an interview with a funeral director, said to him by a father preparing to bury his child. “Needlessly Wild,” starts out delicious, the single-syllable “wild” bending like taffy. But then the lyrics betray something a little more malicious, a little more marked by pain, and soon “I’m needlessly wild” festers into “I’m needless and wild, needless and wild.” Of “Dress Yourself,” which contains the lyrics “dress yourself in clothes you love for a world you hate,” Carrie Brownstein told The New Yorker “I think what kind of haunts me about that song is that I wrote the lyrics, exactly as they are now, before my mom died. The chorus is very much about the pain I have in my life. Or, a pain. A long-standing pain. Of depression, or a sense of feeling misplaced sometimes. It was surreal to have her die after I’d written it. It was like I’d gifted the song to myself beforehand.” LISTEN TO LITTLE ROPE In the autumn of 2022, Carrie Brownstein received a call from Corin Tucker, who herself had just received a call from the American embassy in Italy. Years earlier, Brownstein listed Tucker as her emergency contact on a passport form, and while she had since changed her phone number, Tucker had not. The embassy staff were desperately trying to reach Brownstein. When they finally did, they told her what happened: While vacationing in Italy, Brownstein’s mother and stepfather had been in a car accident. Both were killed. Although some of the album had already been written, aspects of each song—a guitar solo, the singing style, the sonic approach—were pulled into a changed emotional landscape. As Brownstein and Tucker moved through the early aftermath of the tragedy, elements of what was to become the emotional backbone of Little Rope began to form – how we navigate grief, who we navigate it with, and the ways it transforms us. Little Rope was recorded at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Oregon with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton. 

Sleater-Kinney Tour Dates: 02/28/2024 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park 02/29/2024 - Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl 03/01/2024 - Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre 03/02/2024 - Albuquerque, NM @ El Rey Theater 03/04/2024 - Tulsa, OK @ Cain's Ballroom 03/05/2024 - Dallas, TX @ Studio at the Factory 03/06/2024 - Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater 03/08/2024 - New Orleans, LA @ Joy Theater 03/09/2024 - Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern 03/11/2024 - Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa 03/12/2024 - Washington, DC @ The Anthem 03/13/2024 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel 03/14/2024 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel 03/16/2024 - New York, NY @ Racket *SOLD OUT* 03/17/2024 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club *SOLD OUT* 03/18/2024 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *SOLD OUT* 03/20/2024 - Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall 03/21/2024 - Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre 03/22/2024 - Madison, WI @ The Sylvee 03/23/2024 - St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre 03/25/2024 - Kansas City, MO @ The Truman 03/26/2024 - Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom 03/28/2024 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern 03/29/2024 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco 03/30/2024 - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield 03/31/2024 - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield 04/02/2024 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox 04/03/2024 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox 04/04/2024 - Vancouver, BC @ The Vogue 04/05/2024 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom *SOLD OUT*

Photo Credit: Chris Hornbecker (download hi-res)

1. Hell 2. Needlessly Wild 3. Say It Like You Mean It 4. Hunt You Down 5. Small Finds 6. Don’t Feel Right 7. Six Mistakes 8. Crusader 9. Dress Yourself 10. Untidy Creature

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