Philadelphia based art-folk duo @ (pronounced ‘at’) share a new single entitled ‘Bird’, taken from their debut 4AD album Autosmile, out on 16 October.
‘Bird’ is ushered in by an eerie chromatic trance of acoustic guitar and cinematic clarinet passages, juxtaposed by a gorgeously uplifting choral harmony; a portrayal of battling wills. The band says: “This song was inspired by dead baby birds that kept appearing on my deck. It was written on a bike ride through Druid Hill Park in Baltimore. The lyrics have lots of puns which hopefully offset their hopelessness.”
‘Bird’ arrives alongside a surreal music video directed by Caity Arthur, who writes:
“‘Give me warmth, give me death, whatever I don’t want it
I walked out on the deck to put a hole in my head’
These lines from ‘Bird’ stuck out to me first; jarring, casual, something I can see myself saying. I liked the song’s mix of funniness and macabre. The week I started planning this video, a beautiful black and white bird died on my own balcony. Within a couple days, it was hollowed and eaten away by flies and ants. I heard the song, then saw the bird on my own balcony with the video taking shape in my mind; all a strange and dreamlike sequence. I am an advocate of finding beauty in sadness and dark things, instead of staying away from them.
‘Decomposed baby bird come to rest in my doorway
Should have given him a funeral on the first day’”.
‘Bird’ follows two previous singles off Autosmile — ‘Punish My Mind’, a dystopian Beach Boys-esque track complete with fluttering woodwinds and raucous distorted monkey howls, and the impressive nearly 7-minute album title track ‘Autosmile’, which claimed Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Track’ among other wide-spread acclaim.
Multi-instrumentalist songwriters Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak have a pact, a devotion to each other and to the music of @. In their solo existence, Victoria works as a beekeeper and Stone as a self-taught computer programmer, but when they get together, they become a singular, avant-garde song force. On their new album Autosmile, the band’s first with 4AD, @ have harnessed their unique process to reimagine the psychedelic folk tradition as an undeniably contemporary art form, carefully balancing beauty and pain and shifting between black hole heaviness and patient understanding, never abandoning a sense of wonder.
Both Victoria and Stone are incisive, classic songwriters, and their occasionally-baroque arrangements and production touches give the songs a rough-hewn yet virtuosic quality. This inventiveness, applied to songs that hold up against classic psych folk records, sets @ apart, somehow looking backwards and forwards all at once. There is a consistent darkness to the moods of Autosmile, but @ is also an inherently playful enterprise, unexpected prog flourishes lurking behind incisive indie rock song craft.
Autosmile follows @’s 2021 debut album Mind Palace Music — displaying the duo’s penchant for confessional lyrics and affinity for blending digital and analog elements, the album was an organic success story via word-of-mouth praise and well-deserved press recognition. In 2024, @ released their subsequent EP Are You There God? It’s Me, @, where they diverted from their usual acoustic instrumentation to soul-searching on a sonic side quest into more electronic music. In the time since, the band has become an in-demand live act with support shows alongside Snail Mail, Cameron Winter, and Black Country New Road.
To read the full album bio, head HERE.
Autosmile is out on 16 October on Soil Brown vinyl, CD, and digital. A special 12×12 insert and signed photo print bundle with the Soil Brown LP is also available to pre-order via Bandcamp and the 4AD webstore. For more information and to pre-order, head HERE.
@
Autosmile
16 October 2026
Formats: Digital | Soil Brown LP (+ Exclusive Bundle via Bandcamp & 4AD Webstore) | CD
Tracklisting
- Bird
- Love In The Dark
- I Know You Are (But What Am I Thinking)
- Earthly Love
- Your Dog
- Untitled
- I’m Not In Pain
- Punish My Mind
- Judgement Farmer
- Autosmile
- Amity
Praise for Autosmile
“One of the best psych-folk albums of 2026… a tour-de-force of baroque orchestration, pristine vocal harmonies, and piercingly direct lyrics.” – Rolling Stone
“Seven-minute songs can be a test of faith; ‘Autosmile’ is a reminder of the bliss that awaits believers.” – Pitchfork’s Best New Track for ‘Autosmile’
“One of 2026’s best and most bewitching releases.” – Crack
“Enchanting, unassuming yet hypnotic.” – The Guardian
“Rose and Filipzak make punishment feel like a reward.” – Paste on ‘Punish My Mind’
“A chaotic sonic sprawl.” – Stereogum
“A seven-minute journey that blurs in and out of focus, referencing demonology before reaching a beautiful climactic piece of acquiescence.” – Clash on ‘Autosmile’
“An emotive and shimmering piece of upmost beauty.” – The Quietus
@ ONLINE
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