“I’ve laid awake since one/And now it’s four o’clock.” Mitski has dropped “Heat Lightning,” a stirring ode to insomnia.
A track from her upcoming album Laurel Hell, “Heat Lightning” is accompanied by a lyric video created by Alex Moy. It features surreal landscapes — from floating furniture to rising glaciers — over haunting instrumentation.
“Heat Lightning” follows “The Only Heartbreaker,” co-written with Dan Wilson, and “Working For the Knife.” Laurel Hell, out Feb. 4 via Dead Oceans, marks her sixth LP.
“I needed love songs about real relationships that are not power struggles to be won or lost,” Mitski said of the new record. “I needed songs that could help me forgive both others and myself. I make mistakes all the time. I don’t want to put on a front where I’m a role model, but I’m also not a bad person. I needed to create this space mostly for myself where I sat in that gray area.”
Mitski will embark on a sold-out tour in support of Laurel Hell in the new year, kicking off in Asheville, North Carolina, on Feb. 17. She’ll hit major cities including, Austin, Texas (ACL Live at the Moody Theater on Feb. 26), and New York City (March 24 at Radio City Music Hall), before heading to Europe.
VIDEOS
Los Angeles-based designer and recent-ish hip-hop producer Real Bad Man is taking up after Boldy James' prolific work ethic. He is rolling out the red carpet for his next collaborative project with the Detroit spitter titled Conversational Pieces.
Per a press release, the duo will be releasing their third body of work on May 2 via the producer's namesake record label. This will be a follow-up to 2022's Killing Nothing, as well as their debut back in 2020, Real Bad Boldy. The latter also happened to be Bad Man's first LP. As per usual, the tracklist is going to be tight knit.
There's going to be a total of 13 songs and three features. One of them is Conway the Machine, and the other two are a part of the lead singles to Conversational Pieces. Real Bad Man and Boldy James have decided to recruit Washington D.C. artist dreamcastmoe and Run The Jewels' El-P for "Come Back Around" and "It Factor," respectively.
Overall, the vibe we are getting from both tracks is very much "conversational. From the fairly chill production from Bad Man to James' very matter-of-fact deliveries on both cuts, they are definitely following the blueprint they laid out for themselves. See what they are hitting for with the links below.
Quotable Lyrics From "Come Back Around":
Uncle love to smoke and drink, granny on the couch slumped
Needle hanging out her arm, shoot up at least twice a day
Kids damn near starving, cooking noodles in the microwave
Where peoplе slave and don't ever gеt a job promotion
Auntie working two jobs every day but she be closet smoking
Where n****s sick and tired of being tired of hoping
.jpg)
.jpg)
