Izzy Hagerup, the LA-based musician who records as Prewn, knows how to keep a song interesting. This fall, she’ll release her new album System, and it’s shaping up to be extremely cool. We already posted the album’s title track, an absolute masterclass of tension and release. Today, she follows that song with a new one called “Dirty Dog,” which is grimier and noisier than “System” but which keeps shifting in similar ways.
“Dirty Dog,” starts out as a grungy grind with an absolutely nasty riff. It sounds cool as hell, but it doesn’t stay in that pocket. Instead, it builds, evolves, and ultimately switches things up completely. In a press release, Prewn says, “‘Dirty Dog’ is a song that lives in the nightmarish dreamscape of the unconscious — a place of fear and fearlessness, freudian and a little evil. The song is about a self-serving man who’s abandoned his needy mother and comes crawling back when it’s a little too late.”
Below, check out directors Christie Clause and Chris Bugnacki’s “Dirty Dog” video, as well as Prewn’s upcoming shows in Germany and the Netherlands. There is an actual dog in the video, but it doesn’t look all that dirty.
Cusp is an appropriate name for an indie band that seems to be perpetually on the brink of a breakthrough, and with each passing year the Chicago band keeps the nomenclature relevant by moving forward to some new threshold of renown. In 2023, we named Cusp one of the year’s best new bands, and Thanks So Much was one of my personal favorite EPs of 2024. Today Cusp are back with news of What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back, their new album for the esteemed Exploding In Sound label.
What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back is dropping in October, and today we get our first preview with a video for lead single “Follow Along” by directors Jamie Lipman and Kira Fahmy. “Follow Along” is an intensely catchy indie rock track with a huge, distorted chorus and plenty of quotable lyrics like “I saw my friend, she was going astray/ I look at my phone and it shows me the way.” An explainer from Cusp’s Jen Bender:
“Follow Along” is a caricature of the age old question – “If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?” Chaos may ensue if you get too swept up in what everyone else is doing,” she explains. “We approached our friends Jamie Lipman and Kira Fahmy with the idea to do a video for this song and they immediately understood the themes and energy. Jamie gave us a 20-minute, Detroiters-style presentation about the vision for the shoot and the rest is history. He has been quoted as saying he is the only one ‘willing to put his life on the line’ to play the magician.
NYC fuzz rock tag team, Jobber, are releasing their debut album, Jobber To The Stars, this Friday, August 22nd via Exploding In Sound Records. Today they're back with one more finishing move before they pin you at the end of the week: "Clothesline From Hell."
The final single from Jobber To The Stars is a nearly five minute epic of fuzz-drenched guitars and musclebound melodies that's sure to be stuck in your head by the end of the first chorus. Jobber excel at blending the larger than life themes of pro wrestling with real pathos and a giant dose of distortion, and "Clothesline From Hell" makes it clear that this is a record that's just as much for wrestling fans as it is for headbangers and power poppers alike.
Meizner discussed the new song, saying:
"'Clothesline From Hell' is about learning to emotionally detach from my job and draw clear lines to protect your personal time. 'I only come here to get paid’ is the thesis of the song—the mantra I have to repeat and internalize when the 9:00 to 5:00 grind is really getting to me, or when my job begins to feel more like an identity, and starts impacting my self-worth. Internalizing the mantra, and protecting this boundary, is the only way for me to maintain any semblance of sanity. Musically, I was inspired by Queens of The Stone Age in the groove and structure."
In 2022 Jobber released their debut EP, Hell In A Cell, drawing acclaim from the likes of Stereogum, The FADER, BrooklynVegan, FLOOD Magazine, Paste Magazine, Bandcamp Daily, Uproxx, Alternative Press, and many more. Now Jobber To The Stars picks up where they left off with eleven songs that hit harder than a chair shot to the head. Jobber—Meizner, drummer-vocalist Michael Falcone, guitarist-keyboardist Michael Julius, and bassist Miles Toth—recorded the album with Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr, Body/Head, Pixies) and Aron Kobayashi Ritch (Momma, Hotline TNT, Squirrel Flower), and it explodes from the speakers with track after track of heavy guitars and effortless power pop hooks.
Lyrically Meizner explores parallels between professional wrestling and the frustrations of what she calls the "mundane and very serious struggles under capitalism." The songs are packed with bite, melody, humor, and brains, all delivered with the visceral fun of a wrestling match, transcending the glam and the gimmicks to tap into something very real.
Izzy Hagerup has a chill-inducing voice, which is why I am completely consumed every time I hear her release a song under her project Prewn. The Los Angeles-based musician’s 2023 debut album Through The Window solidified her as a singer-songwriter whose voice is equally as sharp as her words, like PJ Harvey or Adrianne Lenker. Today, she’s returned with a new single “System,” and, hallelujah, the announcement of her sophomore follow-up System, out Oct. 3.
“System” opens with menacing see-sawing strings that chug on with a gritty resilience. Initially, Hagerup submits to malaise. “I don’t know how to move/ I’m giving into the fear again,” she sings. “It seems that misery’s my best friend/ And it will come to me again and again.” Her voice is pained yawn. But as we near two minutes, the song undoes itself, opening up with bright, twangy guitars and tambourine. When the chorus arrives, it’s watershed catharsis: Prewn acknowledges her cyclical pain, but won’t be weighed down by it.
In a press release, Hagerup detailed writing the sing. “When I wrote ‘System’ I was supposed to be present and alive and gracious and happy. But somehow I couldn’t escape my own internal fears and depression that can follow me wherever I go.”
On the album, she added: “This new album comes from a much more self-centered place, the stagnant aftermath of intensity and emotion.” She continued, “I think it came from a period of time that was more numb, hollow, and confused. More disassociated from heartfelt pain, more entrenched in a frustrating and aimless discomfort.”
The song comes with a gorgeous video directed by Sophie Feuer. In the black and white visual, Hagerup sings crouched on the floor, a girl places with her pet bird, a man holds a baby, and a myriad of individuals stare at the camera. Life passing them all by. Watch it below.
For the past decade, the New Orleans band Lawn has thrived on the palpable chemistry between co-lead singers and songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes. Though each boasts distinct sensibilities—Folger’s songs are breezy, jangly, and personal while De Magalhaes’ are biting and propulsive post-punk—they’ve seamlessly blended their idiosyncratic styles over three unassailable indie rock full-lengths, while becoming a fixture in a thriving New Orleans scene, and sharing stages with artists like Momma, Hovvdy and Omni.
De Magalhaes had moved to Chicago following the release of the 2022 Bigger Sprout, and released an acclaimed solo LP under the name Rui Gabriel via Carpark Records, which earned praise from folks like Pitchfork, Stereogum and Paste.
In May, the band announced their signing to Exploding In Sound and shared a single entitled "Sports Gun." Today, the band are returning to share announce their 4th LP God Made The Highway, which will be released on Exploding In Sound on September 19th. To mark the announce the band are sharing a new single called "Davie."
While their latest, God Made the Highway, is their most confident, energetic, and cohesive yet, it’s also the product of distance. De Magalhaes had moved to Chicago following the release of the 2022 Bigger Sprout, while Folger stayed in Louisiana. Despite being apart, the two still found their relentlessly collaborative spark through remote writing, ample voice memos, and a blistering studio session. These 11 urgent and inviting tracks are a testament to their enduring friendship.
When De Magalhaes lived in Chicago (he moved back to New Orleans this year), it marked the first time he had been states away from Folger since they formed the band in 2016. “I didn't know how writing new music was going to work out, because Mac and I couldn't practice with the distance between us,” says De Magalhaes. “I put out my solo record as Rui Gabriel and playing guitar was weird because I didn't have Mac as a reference anymore. I leaned on writing very bass-heavy riffs and adding drum machines.” Two ideas required help from Lawn’s drummer Mark Edlin (Hovvdy), and the two hit the studio with engineer Greg Obis (Stuck). When Folger received the demos, he decided to write parts over them. “Rui would text me the voice memo, and I would go into the studio and plug my phone into the PA so it felt like we were in the practice space together,” Folger says. “From there, we just started sending each other voice memos of different song ideas.”
As the tracklist came together, they booked recording time with the full band—drummer Edlin and guitarist Nick Corson (The Convenience, Video Age) at Chicago’s Palisades studios.
Where previous Lawn LPs were home-recorded, this marked the first time the band had tracked an LP in a real studio. They had also never recorded without fully rehearsing and tour-testing each new song. “We had to get everything done in three days, but it felt very natural even if it was a new thing for us,” says De Magalhaes. Folger credits the camaraderie between the band with getting them through. “Our bandmates Nick and Mark have been in our lives for basically 10 years, he says. “I just felt very comfortable. We tried to overdub certain things, but it was just never the same vibe. We wanted it to keep this loose and spontaneous rather than tidy.”
"Davie" exemplifies this effortlessly laid back approach, and the camaraderie the band shares. Written by Folger, the song is a crystalline power pop gem, about the early days of the band, when they were living in a crumbling house in New Orleans.
Folger says of the track:
Davie is the name of our landlord back in 2016-2017, after college. The song is about that time in our lives. The house was in Hollygrove, New Orleans. It was big and beautiful and falling apart. You could see the dirt through the floorboards in some places, and anything that could break did. The landlord was the type of guy who acted cool and was always high, but in the end, he totally sucked and took all our deposit money. We started Lawn in that house, recording most of the first EP and LP in the living room with our friend Ross (Video Age). We made barely any money working at restaurants, and frequently had bands stay with us for multiple days at a time (this is how we met Mark Edlin, who plays drums on the record and live). Substance use and trying to rock and roll were at an all-time high. The first few weeks in the house, we would regularly spend what little money we had on beers, sit in lawn chairs in an unfurnished living room, and jam while we just sort of shot the shit and played music. Every day held the pursuit of cool, every night we all came back to the same historically preserved shithole. In retrospect, it’s hard to say if they were the worst or the best times, but they were very meaningful.
