Bartees Strange shares new single ‘Backseat Banton’ from his album Horror, out today 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.
Bartees performed the new track on Jimmy Kimmel Live, which aired recently and can be watched back below.
Bartees Strange – ‘Backseat Banton’
‘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’.
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.
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 is 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’. For order information, head HERE.
Praise for Bartees Strange – Horror
“Bartees Strange is the Jordan Peele of indie rock – an auteur who directs everyday fears into his shapeshifting music.” – The Line of Best Fit
“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
BARTEES STRANGE – Horror
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
