Bartees Strange shares ‘Wants Needs’, an uproarious confessional highlight from his upcoming album Horror, out on 14 February. ‘Wants Needs’ finds Strange’s stylistic range and aptitude for genre-melting pop music at its sharpest. What begins as a pitch perfect Radiohead-inspired indie rock earworm gradually crescendos into a full force anthem, anchored by disarming self-assuredness.
“I realised a couple years ago that if music is really going to work out long-term, I want/need more fans. Of course – it’s a timing and numbers game – but race is a powerful component too. I don’t see a lot of people like me in the indie space making long term livings on their records. I worry people may have a hard time connecting to me because I don’t look/sound like them. That I’m fun to root for, but not actually supported. This song is about how much that worries me – fully understanding that a lot of these neurosis are of my own making.”
Bartees Strange – ‘Wants Needs’
Strange was raised on fear. His family told him scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, he started watching scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, Black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral. Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared.
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.
‘Wants, Needs’ follows Horror singles ‘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’.
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.
Early Praise For Horror:
“Steady and unflashy yet ready to stoke crescendos.” – The New York Times
“A chimeric blend of alt-rock, funk, hip-hop, and dance.” – New York Magazine
“Perfect…I could live in that groove forever.” – NPR Music
“His guitar whines with tension behind his voice.” – Rolling Stone
“A home-brewed mix of styles that fits with no trend and is comprehensible only in his particular expression.” – Wall Street Journal
“Heading in a blockbuster direction.” – FADER
“Fucking awesome.” – Stereogum
“An incredible statement of intent, there are sonic departures and evolutions aplenty.” – Record Collector
Horror will be available digitally, on CD, standard black vinyl, transparent vinyl (indie retail and artist store only) and red vinyl (Dinked exclusive edition) which will include a bonus 7” of new songs ‘Like This’ and ‘Pigs Fly’. To pre-order head here.
14 February 2025
Formats: Digital, CD, Standard Black LP, Transparent LP (Artist Store & Indie Retail), Red LP (Dinked)
Tracklist:
- Too Much
- Hit It Quit It
- Sober
- Baltimore
- Lie 95
- Wants Needs
- Lovers
- Doomsday Buttercup
- 17
- Loop Defenders
- Norf Gun
- Backseat Banton
BARTEES STRANGE ONLINE
Instagram @bartees_strange
