This Halloween, Bartees Strange shares a new single from his upcoming album Horror. ‘Too Much’ is a sonic and lyrical love letter from Strange to himself, growing from a deflated ego into a feral giant. As the opening salvo for Horror, ‘Too Much’ sets the tone for the Baltimore-based genre-shifter’s third outing with nods to early hits by the Isleys and the Brothers Johnson. The track comes alongside a music video directed by Caity Arthur, filmed at a haunted house in Baltimore.
Bartees Strange says of ‘Too Much’, “This is the sonic thesis of the album. I feel like if you like this you’ll love everything else. This record is about things that scare me. And this song is about that feeling of being overwhelmed by life. This song is about those feelings. Too much to hold, Heaven to touch.”
Bartees Strange – ‘Too Much’
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.
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. Since releasing his 2022 second 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.
On 14 February 2025, 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’. For pre-order information 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
