Palehound has announced a fifth album, You Sing Like You’re Joking, out 5 February 2027 on Polyvinyl Record Co. The project of New York songwriter and guitarist El Kempner has also shared the first single, Natural Disasters, with a video directed by Rachel Brown of Water From Your Eyes. It follows Eye on the Bat, released in 2023.
Natural Disasters is about a friendship that has drifted apart while climate disasters hit both people involved: one has a flooded basement, the other a house on fire, and they are not speaking. “I was like, ‘Damn, the future is pretty doomy right now. Why can’t we just get over it and get through this together?'” Kempner says.
Brown says the video was built around “the idea of friendship and love as a memory,” and that the gas mask Kempner wears refers to the nuclear war imagery of the 1960s. The shoot went ahead under a storm warning. “We planned the shoot before the forecast started talking about the nor’easter, but I figured that the weather was on theme, so we continued to shoot even with governmental warnings,” Brown says. “Strangely enough, the weather was perfectly fine pretty much all day.”
Kempner co-produced the nine-song album with Julian Fader of Ava Luna and Katie Von Schleicher of Frankie Cosmos, and plays bass on it as well as guitar. Nick Hakim also contributes. According to the announcement, much of the record deals with relationships that have changed or ended, set against a period of success in Kempner’s life and career.
Friendship among musicians is the other subject. Kempner started Palehound in Boston’s DIY scene nearly 15 years ago and has spent the last two years in New York, where they have become close with Cassandra Jenkins, Adrianne Lenker, Samia and Annie DiRusso. Most of them appeared at Kempner’s sold-out “You’re Joking!” residency, which raised money for the Immigrant Defense Project.
“In music, the relationships are so different,” Kempner says. “Because we all have this major thing we connect on, and that is an amazing starting point of friendship.” They add: “I was so lucky to be raised in DIY. I feel like I’ve finally settled into something that feels stronger and fully formed.”
Palehound has been coming to Montreal for more than a decade. Montreal Rocks interviewed Kempner in November 2015, days before a Casa del Popolo show with Mitski, and reviewed the band again at Bar Le Ritz with Waxahatchee in August 2017.
You Sing Like You’re Joking tracklist
- Incisions
- Hourglass
- The Midwest
- Patio
- Natural Disasters
- Target
- Color
- Sum Of Our Days
- Sleep Through Anything
Photo: Tonje Thilesen
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