Palehound (Ellen Kempner) and Jay Som (Melina Duterte) have joined forces for a new project, Bachelor, and shared their first single together via Polyvinyl, "Anything At All." According to a press release, the two musicians began writing and recording together in pre-quarantine 2020, and they wrote, performed, and produced their new single entirely on their own.
"Anything At All" begins with sticky bass lines and steady cymbal hits, met with sparse moments of synth and clever lyrical imagery comparing a menacing adversary to a spider. Later, the track transitions into a swelling moment of head-bobbing instrumentation (in addition to a powerful guitar solo) while its infectious chorus rings out.
"We're so excited to finally share this song with y'all and announce our new band!," Kempner and Duterte say. "We've been dear friends and huge fans of each other for years and were lucky enough to get to work together in January 2020 before quarantine. We feel that 'Anything At All' is an even blend of our tastes and writing styles and to release it feels very hopeful and joyous to us."
Stream the track below.
In related news, Palehound has a livestream event, a concert to commemorate the one-year anniversary of their cancelled US tour supporting Black Friday, happening on Bandcamp on March 13 at 9 PM EST. Tickets are on sale now, and Palehound write:
The last show Palehound played was at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on March 11th 2020, halfway through a tour that felt like a blissful dream. Though news of the pandemic shone through our phones and the venue provided hand washing instructions to the lyrics of our songs, we had no idea that night would be the last time we’d play that setlist live. Since returning from tour, Ellen moved to upstate NY and started to work at a recording studio in Stanfordville NY called the Chicken Shack, owned and operated by Nick Kinsey. Back in October, we decided to make a video of us performing the set and decided to do it at the studio so we’d get a great recording of it. We’ve been sitting on it for a minute but it seems right to release it now around the year anniversary of our tour being cancelled. We really miss playing with each other and playing like for y’all and this feels like the closest we can get to that for now. <3< p></3<>
