“The most alluring and enigmatic musician in indie rock” – Rolling Stone
“To stand inside desire or regret or hope and say what it really does – to the body, to the heart, to others – is an act of courage. That’s what Mitski dares.” – NPR Music
“A Mitski song lasts about as long as it takes to poach an egg. They are small and will knock you out, like pearls slipped inside the left ventricle of your heart.” – New York Magazine
“Mitski’s signature – the thing that makes the internet kids go wild, and has been known to bring grown men to tears at her almost church-like live shows – remains the forensic precision of her songwriting, the way she writes so vividly and seemingly unguardedly about sex and love and the general absurdity of being a person in the world.” – Entertainment Weekly
Mitski’s highly anticipated new album, Laurel Hell, is out today on Dead Oceans.
Laurel Hell is a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love. “I accept it all,” she promises. “I forgive it all.” It cements Mitski’s reputation as an artist who possesses the power of turning our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. “I wrote what I needed to hear. As I’ve always done.”
Mitski wrote many of these songs during or before 2018, and the album was finished being mixed in May 2021. It is the longest span of time Mitski has ever spent on a record, and a process that concluded amid a radically changed world. She recorded Laurel Hell with her longtime producer Patrick Hyland throughout the isolation of a global pandemic, during which some of the songs “slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower.” The album as a whole evolved “to be more uptempo and dance-y. I needed to create something that was also a pep talk.” Mitski explains. The tension that emerges between her refined but plaintive lyrics and the effervescent 1980s sound is a desperately needed infusion, and the work of a mature artist: an album that delivers nuanced profundity on a current of contagious dance beats. It is irresistible.
Watch “Working for the Knife” Video
Watch “The Only Heartbreaker” Video
Watch “Love Me More” Video
Watch “Heat Lightning” Video
Laurel Hell Tracklist
1. Valentine, Texas
2. Working for the Knife
3. Stay Soft
4. Everyone
5. Heat Lightning
6. The Only Heartbreaker
7. Love Me More
8. There’s Nothing Left For You
9. Should’ve Been Me
10. I Guess
11. That’s Our Lamp
Connect with Mitski here:
