Though not even a full year has passed since Bartees Strange released his second album, Farm To Table, the Brooklyn indie singer has shared a pair of new songs as part of Sub Pop’s Singles series.
The first of the two, called “Tisched Off” is a call-out to artists who cosplay as indie, but in actuality, benefit from wealth and privilege.
“You deserve Oscars / For your starving artist routine / You’re draining me / Mad at the culture / and the cancels / Now you’re 40 going on 15,” he shouts on the song’s chorus.
According to a statement accompanied by the song’s release, “Tisched Off,” albeit a bit cheeky in nature, was written all in good fun.
“As an up-and-coming musician, there’s a very special pain that comes with realizing a huge chunk of the artists you’re competing with have way more money and resources than you,” said Strange. “This song takes little digs at them. It’s cute. Tisch is like the fashion school at NYU. When I was living in BK I ran into a bunch of young punk bands and experimental acts that rose quickly from that school. I remember feeling like damn – how do you compete with people like that? They’ve got some very real resources. Anywho – it’s just me making fun.”
On the second song, called “Keekee’in,” Strange recalls a betrayal he faced within the music businesses, as well as among friends.
“Hold up / Back to beastin’ / If it’s a change-up then I’ma swing it / I saw God and yeah he got reasons / I had some old friends / now they all demons,” he sings on the track, driven by found sounds.
“This song is extremely special to me,” said Strange. “During our tour with Car Seat Headrest, the band had COVID. I was bunkered down with my guitarist Dan at his family’s house in the basement. I figured it would be cool to write something using only the tools we had. All of the instrumentation was done with stuff from that room. Matchsticks, pillows for drums, very random keyboards, etc. I wrote this song to get some feelings out I had about some business people I was considering working with — they ended up being shady and I was feeling very betrayed. I was thinking about how valuable it is to have people you can really trust. And how few those people are.”
You can listen to the new songs above.
