Will Butler + Sister Squares

Will Butler + Sister Squares, Will Butler & Sister Squares

Released on 22/09/2023 by Merge Records
Main artists: Will Butler + Sister Squares Will Butler Sister Squares
Genre: Alternative & Indie

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Will Butler's new band, and album, was born out of necessity. While the multi-instrumentalist Butler had released a few solo records during his tenure in Arcade Fire (the band co-founded by his brother Win), in 2022 he found himself adrift. "I had quit my band Arcade Fire very recently, after 20 years—maybe the most complex decision of my life. I had spent the preceding two years at home with my three children. I was waking up every morning and reading Emily Dickinson, until I had read every Emily Dickinson poem. I was listening to Morrissey, to Shostakovich, to the Spotify top 50. I had unformed questions with inchoate answers." When the itch to make a new record came, Butler found his answers at home, in his Brooklyn basement studio with his wife, Jenny Shore, and friends—Jenny's sister Julie Shore, Sara Dobbs and drummer Miles Francis, formerly of Antibalas. You can hear the theatrical Morrissey influence, as well as some New Order cool (the icy synth riffs that slice through "Stop Talking") and Echo and the Bunnymen's darker side. And yes, Dickinson's idyllic effect is evident on "Long Grass," a collision of smooth bass, energetic synth and hyperkinetic BPMs with high-drama vocals casting a goth shadow on the dance floor: "Let me stay …Here in the long grass/ Here by the train tracks/ Here where the air is clear/ Here where the blood sings." "Willows" wouldn't be out of place on a John Hughes '80s soundtrack, but also packs in a bit of Arcade Fire's mischief and urgency. "Me & My Friends" tackles a classic goth-industrial rhythm and layers on a spooky vocal choir—"I want to tell you that, I, I'm all right/ It's just me and my friends/ Gonna see you in the morning/ At the end of the night/ If it eeeeeeever ends"; maybe the "friends" are literal, maybe they are sleep-depriving 3 a.m. worries. Francis has described "Saturday Night" as having a "robot-alien-dancing-at-a-haunted-dive-bar" feeling, boosted by strings. "Car Crash" is pretty darn goth in sentiment ("When they come out to lay the sheets/ Will the police recognize me/ When they come out and clean the street/ Will there be anything left for anything to see?"); it starts out with just Butler and piano before eventually building to a metallic shimmer and heavenly host chorus. New Romantic-derived "Arrow of Time" is a fun surprise, opening with big, funky liquid bass before it explodes out of nowhere to momentary punkish fury. And "I Am Standing in a Room" comes on as unhinged Danny Elfman quirk: a crazed barroom piano roll from a haunted house where Tim Burton cartoon skeletons juke and jive. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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Will Butler + Sister Squares

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