Next month, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks will release their seventh studio album, Sparkle Hard. Already fans have heard the two early singles,“Middle America” and “Shiggy”; now, Malkmus has broken off a third offering.
Titled “Refute”, it features guest vocals from the one and only Kim Gordon (if you’ll recall, in 1999 Malkmus and Gordon played together in the Sonic Youth side-project Kim’s Bedroom). The country-tinged cut reflects on marriage and infidelity, according to a press release:
Per Malkmus, the idea was to “queer the duet,” by messing with “Nashville tropes in light of current trends in evolutionary psychology” and reversing “the classic He Said/She Said narrative, where in this case the ‘wife’ is the cheater, and the omniscient narrator enters at the end to offer cold comfort.”
(Read: Dissected: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks)
Hear it down below.
Sparkle Hard arrives May 18th via Matador. Malkmus debuted “Refute”, along with other new album tracks, during a recent appearance on Live From Here, the weekly radio variety show formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion.
Revisit Malkmus’ chat on Kyle Meredith With…, during which he discussed Sparkle Hard and the prospect of another Pavement reunion tour.
