Sleater-Kinney Share New Single 'Untidy Creature'
Their new album will be out January 19th on Loma Vista.
By: Michael Major Jan. 04, 2024
Sleater-Kinney release “Untidy Creature,” the blistering new single and closer from their anticipated new album, Little Rope, out January 19th on Loma Vista. The song's remarkable one-shot music video, directed by Nick Pollet, features celebrated Australian freediver Amber Bourke holding her breath underwater for the song's three and a half minute duration.
Of the song and video, the band says “‘Untidy Creature' was the first song we wrote for Little Rope, although we didn't know it at the time; we weren't certain we were even working on another record. We also worried it had come too easy, the song featured two elements that come very naturally to Sleater-Kinney: a big guitar riff, an even bigger vocal. But as the year wore on, and our choices and bodily autonomy shrank, our feeling about the song changed. It became a gift, somewhere to put our darkest fears, and our deepest hopes. We sometimes feel trapped or angry, and yet still we breathe.”
“For the video, we wanted imagery that spoke to the themes which permeate Little Rope: uncertainty, restlessness, urgency, all of the in-between and discomfiting states with which we're forced to reckon. So, we came up with the idea of a woman holding her breath in a bathtub for the duration of the song, unsure of her motivations, not knowing whether she's seeking escape, disappearance, absolution, or simply a moment of quiet and reprieve. We love the tension created by an act that defies both custom and comfort.”
On Little Rope, Sleater-Kinney unleash one of their most potent weapons: the shattering emotional range of Corin Tucker's vocals. In an album so centered on the vulnerability required to face the world as it is, Tucker manages to find her way from composure to its utter absence, and what she conjures is a series of visceral turns, a sharper, heavier manifestation of a rawness that's always been there, most notably on the band's early landmark record, Dig Me Out.
Perhaps the most unforgettable of these moments comes near the very end of the album, in the brilliant closing track, “Untidy Creature” – a song that almost didn't make it onto the record, but ends up being the perfect coda, at once the biggest-sounding track on the record and its most lyrically intimate: “But here's too much here that's unspoken/And there's no tomorrow in sight/Could you love me if I was broken/There's no going back tonight.” Then the chorus gives way, and in its place a deep, desperate wail that closes one of the most honest and soul-bearing albums by one of modern rock's most vital bands.
Last month the band brought Little Rope single “Say It Like You Mean It” to life on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, accompanied by special guest tambourinist Fred Armisen. Rolling Stone called it “a soaring rendition” of the song Paste Magazine called “pure rock bliss.”
Sleater-Kinney's North America tour in support of Little Rope kicks off next month on Feb 28th in San Diego. Tour highlights include multiple nights in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. All dates below. Visit sleater-kinney.com for more information.
To call Little Rope flawless feels like an insult to its intent – it careens headfirst into flaw and brokenness – a meditation on what living in a world of perpetual crisis has done to us, and what we do to the world in return.
On the surface, the album's 10 songs veer from spare to anthemic, catchy to deliberately hard-turning. But beneath that are perhaps the most complex and subtle arrangements of any Sleater-Kinney record, and a lyrical and emotional compass pointed firmly in the direction of something both liberating and terrifying: the sense that the only way to gain control is to let it go.
In the autumn of 2022, Carrie Brownstein received a call from Corin Tucker, who herself had just received a call from the American embassy in Italy. Years earlier, Brownstein listed Tucker as her emergency contact on a passport form, and while she had since changed her phone number, Tucker had not. The embassy staff were desperately trying to reach Brownstein. When they finally did, they told her what happened: While vacationing in Italy, Brownstein's mother and stepfather had been in a car accident. Both were killed.
Although some of the album had already been written, aspects of each song—a guitar solo, the singing style, the sonic approach—were pulled into a changed emotional landscape. As Brownstein and Tucker moved through the early aftermath of the tragedy, elements of what was to become the emotional backbone of Little Rope began to form – how we navigate grief, who we navigate it with, and the ways it transforms us.
Little Rope was recorded at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Oregon with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton.
Sleater-Kinney Tour Dates:
02/28/2024 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
02/29/2024 - Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
03/01/2024 - Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
03/02/2024 - Albuquerque, NM @ El Rey Theater
03/04/2024 - Tulsa, OK @ Cain's Ballroom
03/05/2024 - Dallas, TX @ Studio at the Factory
03/06/2024 - Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater
03/08/2024 - New Orleans, LA @ Joy Theater
03/09/2024 - Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
03/11/2024 - Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa
03/12/2024 - Washington, DC @ The Anthem
03/13/2024 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
03/14/2024 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
03/16/2024 - New York, NY @ Racket *SOLD OUT*
03/17/2024 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club *SOLD OUT*
03/18/2024 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *SOLD OUT*
03/20/2024 - Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
03/21/2024 - Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
03/22/2024 - Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
03/23/2024 - St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
03/25/2024 - Kansas City, MO @ The Truman
03/26/2024 - Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
03/28/2024 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
03/29/2024 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco
03/30/2024 - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
03/31/2024 - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
04/02/2024 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
04/03/2024 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
04/04/2024 - Vancouver, BC @ The Vogue
04/05/2024 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom *SOLD OUT*
Photo Credit: Chris Hornbecker
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