Will Butler is teaming up with his backing band Sister Squares for a new album, naturally titled Will Butler + Sister Squares. The LP arrives September 22nd via Merge, and as a preview, the artists have shared the lead single “Long Grass.” The band have also mapped out North American and European tour dates for later this year.
Butler began working with Sister Squares — Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Sara Dobbs — several years ago, when he first began putting out solo music. “I met Jenny — my wife! — in college, the year before I joined Arcade Fire,” he explained in a statement. “When I needed a band to tour Policy, I asked [Jenny’s sister] Julie to join because I trusted her musically. And I asked Sara, Jenny and Julie’s childhood friend, because I knew she was super talented.” Meanwhile, Buter met previous Antibalas drummer Francis when his band opened for Arcade Fire.
Sister Squares have supported Butler on tour as he’s promoted three albums under his own name, but the decision to call his latest project Will Butler + Sister Squares came from a desire to collaborate even earlier, in the writing process. “After Generations, I considered making a weird solo record. Me alone in the basement, etc., etc. Mostly I realized that what I wanted was the opposite,” he explained.
Recorded last August and produced by Francis, Will Butler + Sister Squares serves up pop music through the lens of a 40-year-old indie rock veteran. “I had quit my band Arcade Fire very recently, after 20 years — maybe the most complex decision of my life,” Butler said of the origins of the record. “I had spent the preceding two years at home with my three children. I was 39 years old. 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. But, honestly, I was feeling great about the record.”
Lead single “Long Grass” delivers on those Adult Pop vibes, setting the most intellectual story you could imagine to a dance-inducing combination of lively drums and bubbling keys. “I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s,” Butler explained. “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?”
Pre-orders for Will Butler + Sister Squares are ongoing. The artists will support the album with a fall tour of North America and Europe; grab tickets via Ticketmaster, or find deals over at StubHub, where orders are 100% guaranteed via StubHub’s FanProtect Program.
Last year, Butler shared the singles “A Stranger’s House” and “Nearer to Thee.” He left Arcade Fire that March after joining the band in 2003.
Will Butler + Sister Squares Artwork:
Will Butler + Sister Squares Tracklist:
01. Open
02. Stop Talking
03. Willows
04. Long Grass
05. Me & My Friends
06. Saturday Night
07. Car Crash
08. Sunlight
09. Arrow of Time
10. I Am Standing in a Room
11. Good Friday, 1613
12. Old Year
13. Hee Loop
14. The Window
Will Butler + Sister Squares 2023 Tour Dates:
07/29 – 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