The Baby Reimagined is a song-for-song reinvention of the debut album from Samia. It features old friends and new connections forged over mutual admiration. While some remix albums struggle to justify their existence, this one is a testament to the songwriting at the core of Samia’s work. In any hands, these songs are special. And in the carefully selected hands at work across this release, these songs are transcendent.

Since announcing in December with Briston Maroney’s spare, soulful take on “Is There Something in the Movies?,” a few additional tracks have seen the light of day: The District’s twinkly emo makeover of “Stellate,” Bartees Strange’s interstellar revamp of the album-opening “Pool,” and Christian Lee Hutson’s beautiful, unhurried version of “Does Not Heal.” But today you can listen in full.  Stream below or wherever you get your music.

EXCUSE ME @babyboyssucks pic.twitter.com/3cwPOBb7tA

— sydney liz (@seaofsplitpeas) January 11, 2021

Check your mailbox. Earlier this week Baby Boys postcards started landing all over the world. Words of encouragement were scrawled across the back in sharpie. Tucked in the corner of the card was a simple QR code. When the lucky recipients scanned it, they were treated to a brand new Baby Boys song.

Yes, after a near two year hiatus, the Twin City weirdo pop group is back and they’re sending you music in the mail. Earlier this week they offered up “Cannonball,” a demented nursery rhyme meets muzak tropicália romp. Video for the song is below, in which a purple-clad rollerblader brandishes their big beard, a flag and quite a bit of cheer throughout the heart of suburbia. It is sufficiently strange.

Today they’ve offered up a second new song in the form of “Duke and the Cash,” a frantic burst of neon lights and future pop bombast. Like “Cannonball,” the song comes with a fittingly irreverent video, this time presented with an ecstatic dance performance filmed by YouTube star Buff Correll. 

It’s been quite the year for Jordana. In March we re-issued her sleeper debut Classical Notions of Happiness. Then the world abruptly fell apart. Using the time she would have spent touring in support of the album (seriously, there were like 60 dates!), she quickly turned around a batch of new material that radically expanded on the homespun bedroom pop of her debut.  The result is today’s Something To Say To You, a piece of music meant to be consumed as a whole or as two distinct sections: Something to Say, which was released in July, and the thought-completing To You, which arrives alongside the full album.

“These EP’s have two different atmospheres,” Jordana recently told Our Culture, in an artist spotlight feature, “where Something To Say is more vague and To You is more direct, but when they all come together, the atmospheres collide, with different emotions in a matter of minutes, throughout the album, with all of the different genres we touch.”

Earlier this week she teased the record with one final single, “Reason.” The track follows in the footsteps of “I Guess This Is Life,” sprinkling piano on top of a perfect bass lines, only this time around swapping out the uke-led springiness for a more methodical beat. “It’s is a song of realization,” says Jordana. “How you can find worth and happiness in life just by showing love and compassion through simple gestures and being present in the moment.” The video, directed by the incredibly talented Ethan Nelson, is a moment worth being present in.

When Lauren Laverne spun “I Guess This Is Life” on 6 Music earlier this Fall, her description of the track summarized exactly why we feel so hard for Jordana’s music in the first place: “Lovely, gentle, exploratory, contemplative, tongue in cheek and funny – something really kind of youthful and beautiful about this.” Exactly! Jordana doesn’t write songs that make the listener feel young, she writes songs that make you feel like being old doesn’t – or couldn’t – exist. Something To Say To You, out digitally today and on vinyl Jan 22nd, is her second record. From those sun-drenched piano notes on “Life,” to the Beta Band baiting vibes of “Reason,” to the high temp kissoff of “F*** You,” the album overflows with exuberance. We’re lucky to be delivering this music to you today.

While Something to Say To You is out digitally now, the LP won’t be available until January 22nd. In the meantime, you can pre-order a copy over in our shop, or on exclusive limited edition light blue vinyl via Bandcamp now.

The Baby was a long time coming. And despite the album’s lyrical preoccupation with being alone, it took a village of Samia’s friends to raise it. So it’s little wonder that, in its wake, Samia has enlisted a new group of friends and contemporaries for The Baby Reimagined, out January 15th. Featuring covers, reinventions and remixes, the release is a top to bottom reimagining of her debut, filled with renditions from Bartees Strange, MICHELLE, Field Medic, The Districts, and many more.

Briston Maroney’s take on “Is There Something in the Movies?” serves as the lead single, and is available today wherever you stream music. It comes on the heels of the Anjimile version of “Waverly,” a wintry folk makeover that accompanied the recent music video a few weeks back. Briston’s cover lends his Americana sensibilities to The Baby closer, its earnest heartbreak conveyed through an emotive tenor. The reverb of his guitar echoes in the background, blessing the cinematic tune with a fresh, Western twang.

“This song is the most representative of Samia’s ability to tell a very specific story in a relatable way,” says Briston. “I really enjoyed the opportunity to retell this story in an attempt to show my appreciation as a listener for Samia’s willingness to share her experiences with us all.”

Lots to appreciate here. Full tracklist below. Pre-save The Baby Reimagined now.

01 Is There Something in the Movies? – Briston Maroney Version
02 Minnesota – MICHELLE Remix
03 Winnebago – Charlie Hickey Version
04 Waverly – Anjimile Version
05 Does Not Heal – Christian Lee Hutson Version
06 Triptych – Field Medic Version
07 Stellate – The Districts Remix
08 Limbo Bitch – Donnal Missal Remix
09 Big Wheel – Palehound Remix
10 Fit N Full – Remo Drive Version
11 Pool – Bartees Strange Version

Get your copy of The (original) Baby over in our shop.

Today Samia shares a music video for Baby-standout “Waverly.”  Directed by frequent visual collaborator Matt Hixon, the clip eschews the urban vignettes of the song’s lyrics for a woozy backwoods trip that may or may not end in the den of a low-grade cult. In what has slowly become Samia’s signature visual style, the video is a surrealist, dream-like trek through the absurd. Watch it above.

The release of the video arrives alongside a re-imagining of “Waverly” courtesy of indie folk artist Anjimile (Giver Taker is one of our favorite records of the year!), who spins the song’s buoyant, piano-led energy into a hushed ballad that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Sufjan Stevens album. The rendition serves as the first in a series of collaborations, reworks and re-imaginings set for release over the coming months. We’ll have more details there soon. In the meantime, listen to the cover below or wherever you stream music. 

Back in August we announced the signing of Ottawa sweethearts dad sports with a pair of perfectly-crafted dream pop tunes “name & place” and “out 4 a breather.”  Today the boys returns with a song that commands you to feel things about that haircut your ex gave you a few months back. “Alex and I were hanging in our basement while rocking haircuts that our exes gave us when we came up with the idea for the song,” says dad sports’ Miguel Plante. “It’s about how those haircuts outlasted the relationships.”

On “gf haircut” they run through several minutes of brightly-lit guitar pop before arriving at our favorite coda of 2020: a wistful wash of DIY Death Cab and twinkly bedroom emo catharsis. The video is exactly what you’d expect: fucking adorable, tracking the theme of the song with a lighthearted energy. “The original plan was to cut our actual hair in the vid,” says Plante. “But we all shaved our heads during the summer so we just got some funny wigs instead.”

Stream “gf haircut” here, and stay tuned for more from dad sports soon.

“I Guess This Is Life” is the latest single from Jordana. While recent releases flexed either heavier or poppier muscles, this tune sounds like a panoramic take on the indie-folk bedroom sound of her debut Classical Notions Of Happiness. With the aid of Jordana’s now-regular collaborator MELVV, the track brings together his incredibly precise production and Jordana’s sweetly sung, crystal clear vocals. Like much of her recent output, this is a coming-of-age song; grappling with what faith is, perceiving and being perceived, being attuned to how the most seemingly innocuous experiences in your life can give you pause and affect you deeply. The music video, shot in Wichita, KS, was produced by another of Jordana’s close collaborators, Mel Mercer, who is also responsible for all of her recent press photos.

Of the song, Jordana says, “it’s about the motions of everyday life and how experiences, no matter big or small, make up the person that you are and how you both perceive and are perceived by the world”

Jordana previously announced the release of the …To You EP. The six-song collection is the completion of a two-part series she kicked off with July’s Something To Say EP. The two EPs will be compiled together to make up Something To Say To You LP, the full-length follow up to the aforementioned Classical Notions.

The 12″ LP is available for pre-order and is set for release on January 22nd. The compilation will be available digitally on December 4th, alongside the …To You EP. Pre-save or pre-order here.

Doesn’t take 90 seconds to get the point across in this raucous punk rock scream-along from Native Sun. The band we miss seeing live the most reminds us why with their new one, “Government Shutdown.” The Brooklyn-based trio’s new single is  full of righteous anger and frenetic rage. The video, produced by POND Creative, intersperses “patriotic” images with news clippings, visuals of capitalist excess and striking historical footage, both skewering and lamenting the American experiment. As frontman Danny Gomez says, “What’s more American than a band of immigrants?”, and who better to see both the depths of pain and beauty that America holds.

“Government Shutdown” began conception a year ago to this month on a cold, rainy evening while passing through Chicago’s Treehouse Studios,” says Gomez. “Disenchantment, exhaustion, and numbness permeated. Our goal was to implement a lyrical structure where LESS is MORE (deviating from anything else we’d done in the past). Wordplay Economy — instead presenting a chant that could be sung anywhere, anytime, and collectively to represent unison in the frustration experienced by our current state of affairs. How can anger be used to uphold the government’s inability to serve the individuals that put them in power?”

Pre-COVID, the band was touring the west coast with White Reaper, on their way to SXSW, and had just celebrated their first release with us here at GJ (“Juarez”) selling out back-to-back shows in New York. While touring plans were scrapped, the band has stayed busy during quarantine releasing a covers EP benefitting The Okra Project, Border Angels, RAINN, Bushwick Ayuda Mutua, and the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network. They’ve also been involved in the photo and poster fundraising effort “Bring Music Home” to benefit the National Independent Venue Association. The “Bring Music Home” initiative has been supported by and featured in Variety and Pitchfork. The band will also be featured in the upcoming documentary film Brooklyn is Burning, showcasing the Brooklyn music scene at its peak pre-COVID, how artists are coping during this time of crisis, and how the scene will be impacted in the aftermath.

After a nearly two year hiatus, Haulm are back with their new single “Call The Waves,” premiered earlier today at Billboard. The duo’s new track is a prescient downtempo-pop song written for, and about, our dystopic times. Songwriter JT Norton wrote “Call The Waves” in March in reaction to the early non-action the Trump administration was taking around the pandemic and the news that Trump had a meeting with a possibly Covid-positive Bolsonaro. The beautiful song, and music video, belie the pain and anger at the heart of their new single, watching the callous response by those in power and the complete disregard for human life result in our current national mass tragedy and the powerlessness we have all felt as it unfolds. Norton explains the impetus behind the song saying;

“Call The Waves” was written the night of March 12, after the news that President Trump met with a potentially Covid Positive President Bolsonaro. The idea that these two world leaders, who both downplayed the virus to the detriment of their people could potentially become victims of it smacked of a kind of poetic justice. But what the song is really trying to channel is the sadness of the impending loss of life and the utter powerlessness we feel as citizens of a collapsing democracy.”

Today Samia shares a new full band version of “Is There Something in the Movies?,” the album closing number from her debut, The Baby.  Available wherever you stream music, this new take is much more faithful to the sonics of the live version, which anyone who has seen Samia over the past two years will recognize. Alongside the single comes a live studio music video, filmed, directed and edited by Matthew Hixon captured at Red Convertible Recording in Brooklyn, NY.

“We’ve been playing this version of ‘movies’ live for a couple years but opted to put a more stripped down version that’s centered around the vocals on the record.” Samia shares, adding, “Making this video was the first time we got to hang as a band since quarantine started, so it was a special moment for all of us! I love to rock with my band.”

Snag your copy of The Baby over in our shop right now.