Arcade Fire’s Will Butler + Sister Squares (Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Will’s wife Jenny Shore, and Sara Dobbs) have announced the released of their self-titled debut album and have aired their new single “Long Grass“.
The follow-up to 2020’s Generations will be out on September 22 via Merge. Pre-order your copy here.
The band emerged as full collaborators from their origins as Butler’s touring band, first put together to support 2015’s Policy. While considering making a solo record, Butler found himself turning to the band for feedback on lyrics and song structures, eventually asking Miles if they’d produce the album. From there, the music flowed.
Will Butler + Sister Squares projects widescreen emotional landscapes with a warm, humane soul. “Long Grass” is like a Harry Styles song sung with 20 more years of life behind it, and the back half is a danceable choral record that showcases what Sister Squares bring to Butler’s sound. “It came out uniquely ours,” Miles explains, “a tiny bespoke musical bloom that can never be exactly reproduced. Those kinds of moments between us are embedded all over this album.”
Butler adds:
“I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s. It’s about an artist looking back on his childhood in a small town in Kyrgyzstan in WWII. It’s about love, and becoming an artist, and melancholy, and vast landscapes with a single train track running through them. And it reminded me of young adulthood, of wandering moodily down the train tracks. Maybe the song is also about leaving behind the things that formed us, but trying to remember the world as it used to be?”
Check out the album’s tracklist and watch the video for “Long Grass” below.
Will Butler + Sister Squares Tracklist:
- Open
- Stop Talking
- Willows
- Long Grass
- Me & My Friends
- Saturday Night
- Car Crash
- Sunlight
- Arrow of Time
- I Am Standing in a Room
- Good Friday, 1613
- Old Year
- Hee Loop
- The Window
Will Butler has been a member of the band Arcade Fire for over 10 years. This is his first release under his own name.
Will Butler + Sister Squares Upcoming Tour Dates
07/29 Guelph, ON – Hillside Festival
07/30 Guelph, ON – Hillside Festival
09/23 Brooklyn, NY – Zone One
10/03 Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon
10/04 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
10/06 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
10/07 Seattle, WA – Barboza
10/08 Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
10/17 Boston, MA – Deep Cuts
10/18 Montreal, QC – Bar le Ritz
10/19 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
10/20 Detroit, MI – Loving Touch
10/21 Chicago, IL – Sleeping Village
10/22 Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
11/07 Riga, LV – Palladium
11/10 Berlin, DE – Privatclub
11/12 Aarhus, DK – VoxHall
11/14 Rotterdam, NL – Rotown
11/15 Paris, FR – Café de la Danse
11/16 Brussels, BE – Botanique
11/17 London, UK – ICA
11/18 Dublin, IE – Whelan’s
11/30 Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA
12/01 Washington, DC – DC9
12/02 Durham, NC – Motorco Music Hall