Stephen Malkmus’ The Hard Quartet announce debut album with jangly single ‘Rio’s Song’
The Hard Quartet have announced their self-titled debut with the jangly new single, ‘Rio’s Song’.
Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus first shared details of the project in June, after a series of synchronised posts were shared on social media.
The line-up includes Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Jim White and Emmett Kelly. Today (August 21), they shared their first single, and said in a statement it was their homage to “street rock in the hot afternoon and clowning around with lifer friends in downtown New York City”.
The accompanying music video was shot “guerrilla style” by director Jared Sherbert, and revisits The Rolling Stones‘ 1981 video for ‘Waiting on a Friend’, recreating it shot-for-shot.
“Both Matt and Stephen individually write music that has soundtracked pivotal periods in my life,” the director told Pitchfork. “So working with them on this video for their new band was a dream.”
Filmed in St Mark’s Place and The International Bar, it features artists, musicians, activists, skaters and “icons” from New York “who are dear to the band”.
Their debut is out October 4 via Matador Records. You can pre-order and pre-save here.
The Hard Quartet tracklist:
1 – ‘Chrome Mess’
2 – ‘Earth Hater’
3 – ‘Rio’s Song’
4 – ‘Our Hometown Boy’
5 – ‘Renegade’
6 – ‘Heel Highway’
7 – ‘Killed By Death’
8 – ‘Hey’
9 – ‘It Suits You’
10 – ‘Six Deaf Rats’
11 – ‘Action for Military Boys’
12 – ‘Jacked Existence’
13 – ‘North of the Border’
14 – ‘Thug Dynasty’
15 – ‘Gripping the Riptide’
The band are also set to play dates in New York, Los Angeles and London this October, and will be touring “extensively” in 2025. You can find tickets here.
The Hard Quartet Tour Dates:
October:
10 – The Belasco, Los Angeles
17 – Webster Hall, New York
22 – Electric Ballroom, London
Malkmus has said the band are “all jazzed” about the upcoming album, while Sweeney praised White’s drumming on the new material.
“The way Jim plays really affected the way I hear things,” he said in a press release. “He has this way of making everything sound good. All of a sudden, you really pay attention to everything else that’s going on because of what Jim is doing.”
The new band comes four years after Malkmus shared his last solo album ‘Traditional Techniques’, which also starred now-bandmate Sweeney. In the time since, his focus has been on various activities with Pavement.
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Poppy Burton
NME
