Blonde Redhead — the beloved rock trio of Kazu Makino and Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace — announce their new album, Sit Down for Dinner, out 29th September on section1, lead single, "Snowman," and North American, UK and European tour.
Written and recorded over a five-year period spanning New York City, upstate New York, Milan and Tuscany, Sit Down for Dinner is immaculately structured, imbued with sensitivity, clarity, and resolve. Throughout the album, the understated yet visceral melodies create a foil to lyrics about the inescapable struggles of adulthood: communication breakdown in enduring relationships, wondering which way to turn, holding onto your dreams.
In spring 2020, Makino encountered a passage from Joan Didion's 2005 memoir of grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, which reflects on her devastating experience of witnessing her husband's sudden death at the dinner table. Amid the profound uncertainty of those early pandemic months, Makino was thinking of her own parents far away in Japan; the then-lost ritual of congregating for dinner with family; and the heavy, omnipresent feeling that life could change in the instant for any of us. There was one line that would eventually lend itself to the album's title: "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." Simultaneously, the album has a separate resonance for the Pace brothers. Culturally, dinner is a non-negotiable family ritual, one that the trio implemented while rehearsing or on tour. "I know a lot of people eat and run, eat in front of their TV, or don't care about it too much—and that's OK—but we really do," says Simone. "It's a moment for us to sit down and have time with each other."
This spirit of connection is immediate in Blonde Redhead's innate harmonic sensibilities. "We have a language we have kept," Makino says. "We try to change rhythms, concepts, and sounds. But that harmonic sensibility has stayed the same. It hits the same part of your heart." The vocal layers of the album's opening track, "Snowman," were inspired by the Swingle Singers' acapella renditions of Bach. The luminous groove and chord progression of the song, sung by Amedeo, is one of many Blonde Redhead songs inspired by the attitude and breeziness of Brazilian experimental music; a brilliant turn of phrase melts its titular snowman into simply a man, struggling to express himself: "Do you feel alive or do you only fall? So like a no man, that you are." Amedeo wrote "Snowman" while on a bus in the Monte Rosa mountains and battling motion sickness. "I got inspired to write a song that only had two chords and a melody that would live and float between them. ‘Snowman' is about how it can be a blessing or a curse to be invisible and undetectable, and how it's something we all feel and desire at times."
Sit Down for Dinner is meticulous and immersive. It's a testament to the unique internal logic Blonde Redhead have refined over their three-decade existence, one characterized by the sense of persistent togetherness. They are continuously going, growing, never confined to any era but the present.
Blonde Redhead's North American, UK and European tour begins later this year, following three intimate, sold out shows in Los Angeles, New York and London this Summer. Additionally, in the spirit of Sit Down for Dinner, Blonde Redhead will be hosting special dinners at select restaurants in Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles around the album's release, offering fans a rare chance to spend some time with the band. These are on offer via an exclusive album bundle, including the Sit Down for Dinner signed vinyl, a limited edition section1 magazine, and of course, dinner with the band.
