Phoebe Bridgers has announced her sophomore album, Punisher. Due out June 19th through Dead Oceans, it’s being previewed today with a single called “Kyoto”.
Punisher follows Bridgers’ stellar Stranger in the Alps from 2017. It also comes on the heels of her 2018 debut EP as a member boygenius, the indie supergroup rounded out by Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Additionally, the new album comes just a little over a year after her first release with Better Oblivion Community Center, her project with Conor Oberst.
The 11-track collection boasts an impressive guest list of collaborators new and old. Notably, both of her boygenius bandmates and Oberst all appear on one track called “I Know the End” alongside Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott. Punisher also features contributions from Blake Mills, Christian Lee Hutson, and legendary drummer Jim Keltner.
Former Artist of the Month Bridgers co-produced the forthcoming LP with help from Stranger in the Alps associates Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska return. Mike Mogis was also brought back to mix the album.
Fans received an early taste of Punisher with “Garden Song” from earlier this year. “Kyoto” is the follow-up single and features a cameo from Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg. The song was written after her first trip to Japan. Bridgers talked at length about its backstory in a statement,
“This song is about impostor syndrome. About being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, and playing my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I’m living someone else’s life. I dissociate when bad things happen to me, but also when good things happen. It can feel like I’m performing what I think I’m supposed to be like. I wrote this one as a ballad first, but at that point I was so sick of recording slow songs, it turned into this.”
Below, check out the official video for “Kyoto”, shot in Los Angeles using a green screen.
Punisher Artwork:
Punisher Tracklist:
01. DVD Menu
02. Garden Song
03. Kyoto
04. Punisher
05. Halloween
06. Chinese Satellite
07. Moon Song
08. Savior Complex
09. ICU
10. Graceland Too
11. I Know the End
Phoebe Bridgers Announces New Album Punisher, Shares “Kyoto”: Stream
Lake Schatz
