Chicago’s Slow Pulp unveil a new single/video, ‘Not for Nothing,’ from their highly anticipated third album, Melodie, out September 18th via ANTI-. ‘Not for Nothing,’ nestled in Melodie’s geographic center, is a quiet piano song Henry Stoehr wrote about a series of compounding heartbreaks. Set against a guitar, piano, and banjo arrangement that’s stately but pulls at the heartstrings nonetheless, singer Emily Massey’s alto bends but never cracks. The accompanying video, directed by Ben Turok and shot on film, captures the song’s mood through dark, rich colors and visuals that seem almost dreamlike. The audio used throughout is a live recording of the song and showcases Massey’s magnetic voice, giving fans a taste of what to expect on the band’s biggest North American headline tour this fall.
Stoehr elaborates on ‘Not for Nothing’: “This song is me just trying to externalize very complex emotions – of feeling stuck, of not being able to change how I feel, of my emotions permeating my life, and the heartbreak of my life changing in ways both unexpected by myself and by others. I feel so many people have felt something similar, and I wanted to write a song that would reach people where they are, and give them something concrete to grasp onto in the midst of a feeling that is hard to put into words.”
Slow Pulp is the Madison-born, Chicago-based band of Emily Massey (vocals/guitar), Henry Stoehr (guitar), Alex Leeds (bass), and Teddy Mathews (drums). In most of Slow Pulp’s time living in Chicago, lyrics have mostly been helmed by Massey. For Melodie, “Emily and I were reconnecting with how we wrote together when we first met,” Stoehr says, ultimately leading him to write five songs on the record. Part of the brilliance of this album is that, without looking at the credits, one can’t be sure whether Stoehr or Massey wrote any given track. This is especially true of the songs into which both writers injected pieces of themselves.
Stoehr has produced every Slow Pulp album up until Melodie, for which they worked with producer Elliot Kozel (Rosalía, Yves Tumor, Björk, SZA, Eartheater). Kozel is something of a Wisconsin legend, and Stoehr, Mathews, and Leeds had all grown up as fans of his old band, Sleeping in the Aviary. Melodie also marked the first Massey was in the booth. As an admitted control freak, Stoehr says ceding some of that power was hard at first, but he quickly found that splitting production duties with a trusted bandmate and a seasoned pro was enriching. The production collaboration of Kozel, Stoeher, and Massey led to a record that balances power-pop euphoria, acoustic heartbreak, and the ocean of sound between them.
When they started the songs that comprise Melodie, Slow Pulp found themselves being reflective of their relationships and lives in the last few years. “There’s the sense of a full circle, tapping back into things and transforming through them,” Leeds says. A song is like that too, he believes: “not just a document of what you feel but also a vehicle for understanding how you feel.”
Praise for Slow Pulp
“[On ‘Better Man,’] Emily Massey delivers a vulnerable, crackling performance suggestive of a turn toward a bigger sound in the Chicago group’s new chapter.” – Paste
“Slow Pulp have shown that they know how to make starry-eyed shimmy better than most of their indie rock peers.” – Stereogum
“A band whose collective output is as insightful as it is downright entertaining.”– Consequence
Slow Pulp
Melodie
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