WIDOWSPEAK Share new single ‘Plum’ New album Plum out August 28

Today Widowspeak share the title track from their upcoming album Plum, to be released August 28 via Captured Tracks / Remote Control. On ‘Plum‘, the duo – singer-songwriter Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas – reflect on the Japanese philosophy, Wabi-Sabi, that celebrates the way things are rather than how they should be. As the seemingly perfect fruit begins to rot throughout the video, Hamilton comes to the sanguine recognition that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect as she sings “no one is old, nothing is young.”

Molly Hamilton on ‘Plum‘: “I wrote “Plum” about wanting to be more comfortable and casual with thoughts I tend to avoid.  Especially when I’m feeling very out-of-step with the world, there’s no use in being nostalgic for “the end of an era” or being afraid of what could happen. But, avoiding the present is kind of my default. I’m trying to be more aware that everyone is on its own trajectory, in its own time, slowly becoming something or becoming nothing.”

This follows the release of the album’s first two singles ‘Breadwinner,’ a track “as spare and breathy and beautiful as anything they’ve released” (Stereogum), and ‘Money‘ that “features hypnotically repeating riffs, shimmering guitars” (Paste). Watch the duo perform both singles plus fan favorites on Relix’s “Remote Sessions” here.

On Plum, Widowspeak continue to expand on the shared visions they’ve explored across five albums, delving deeper into what was always there: dusty guitars, ear-worm melodies, warm expansive arrangements.  In the decade since forming they’ve garnered praise from top outlets, with The New York Times saying “…their music keeps opening up new spaces” and NPR noting the duo’s ability to “fuse lightness and darkness like few others.” Recorded over a handful of weekends last winter by Sam Evian (Cass McCombs, Kazu Makino, Hannah Cohen) at his Flying Cloud studio in the Catskills, and mixed by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius), Plum was finished up just as the start of spring signaled something, everything was changing. With its release, Widowspeak have brought something into the world that seems to know its own worth, even as it wonders aloud about what is to come.