Palehound

Palehound Brighton

Palehound live in Brighton at Green Door Store on Thursday 5th September!
Get tickets above, or from SeeTickets.

Palehound’s new album Eye On The Bat charts something that divides you into “before” and “after” – the danger of fantasy, of heartbreak, and the pain of growth. How we can surprise ourselves. It’s a documentation of illusions shattering, both of yourself and of others. A tangle of raw nerves coming undone amongst swelling, propulsive instrumentation, it’s the biggest – and best – Palehound has sounded on record.

From Palehound’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dry Food (2015) to A Place I’ll Always Go (2017), and Black Friday (2019) and then, Doomin’ Sun (2021) by Bachelor (a collaborative project with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte), El Kempner’s songwriting has always been generous and personal, dispatches from a deep inner world. On Eye On The Bat, though, we meet Kempner anew: a guttural howl; white-hot and blistering catharsis; a feverish and visceral and painful present.

As Palehound, Kempner’s guitar playing – their sinewy and off-kilter riffs – has always been front and center across the project’s discography, like smoke unfurling around anxiety-laden lyrics. It’s cerebral, trying to make sense of grief in a grocery store or an argument in a parking lot, plumbing the anxious depths of the interiors. Introspection, retrospection, whatever you’d like to call it, has threaded together Kempner’s songwriting, the bruising aftermath of trying times, since the very beginning. Here, though, we’re trapped in the immediate: witnessing the tiny details that build or break a relationship, and the flood that comes after.

“It’s about me, but it’s also about me in relation to others,” Kempner says of the album. “After hiding for so long – staying inside and hiding your life and hiding yourself from the world – I was ready. I think I flipped.”

Recorded in brief stints across 2022 at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills, the space between each session gave Kempner more time to breathe, to revisit the songs after time away. Kempner co-produced Eye On The Bat alongside Sam Evian (Big Thief, Cass McCombs), who was also crucial to the process — lending assistance yet allowing Kempner to take the reins on producing, to call the shots on the session and step into their own as a producer. Kempner also credits multi-instrumentalist Larz Brogan, who they refers to as “their platonic life partner” and longtime member of Palehound since the Boston DIY days, as a vital part of making the album come together the way it did. They make Kempner feel seen – allow them to be vulnerable, to experiment, to push themself in the studio. After playing together for so many years, Brogan and Kempner both wanted to push themselves to make a record that sounded less produced, one that simply captured the raw energy of Palehound live. Stand-out track “U Want It U Got It” was almost entirely self-produced by Kempner at home, save for Brogan’s drumming, the first time anything of the sort has made it onto a Palehound record.

“In the past, I’ve taken myself really seriously in the studio, and I’ve ended up with really serious-sounding records,” Kempner explains. “This one – it’s a break up record. I wanted it to sound raw. I wanted it to sound like I was feeling – very much in control, and out of control, at the same time.”
Opening track “Good Sex” charts trying to make a relationship work, the desperation to recapture something, in searing detail; before dissolving into “Independence Day,” its chaotic counterpart, where you realize you can’t and find yourself breaking someone’s heart in the glow of fireworks. “The Clutch” flies by red flags, plunging forward even though it shouldn’t, even though it’s speeding toward heartbreak; while “My Evil” is about being the heartbreaker, hurting someone you never could have imagined hurting. Accepting that, even if unintentional, we all act as villains in someone else’s story. https://palehound.bandcamp.com/album/eye-on-the-bat

+ Support

Upcoming Love Thy Neighbour shows:
11062024 – Mike Watt’s Il Sogno Del Marinaio. The Hope & Ruin
13062024 – HAAL. The Hope and Ruin
14062024 – Lewsberg. The Hope & Ruin
15062024 – The Reds, The Pinks, The Purples. The Hope & Ruin
18072024 – Love. Concorde 2
18072024 – The Klittens. The Hope & Ruin
21082024 – Wednesday. Chalk
31082024 – Jake Xerxes Fussell. Lewes Constitutional Club
05
05092024 – Palehound. Green Door Store
07092024 – Martha. The Hope & Ruin
12092024 – Tunic. The Prince Albert
14092024 – Mary Lattimore. West Hill Hall
22092024 – Charlie Parr. Lewes Constitutional Club
26092024 – Melt Banana. Concorde 2
28092024 – Los Campesinos! Chalk
01102024 – Douglas Dare. Dust
03102024 – Twen. The Hope & Ruin
05102024 – Parsnip. Komedia Studio
08102024 – The Howlers. The Prince Albert
13102024 – Skating Polly. Green Door Store
13102024 – Frankie Archer. Komedia Studio
19102024 – Maruja. The Hope & Ruin
24102024 – Junior Brother. The Prince Albert
24102024 – The Tom Robinson Band. Concorde 2
25102024 – DZ Deathrays. Green Door Store
26102024 – Old Sea Brigade. Dust
27102024 – Art Brut. Concorde 2
03112024 – John Francis Flynn. Lewes Constitutional Club
05110224 – Dame Area. The Hope & Ruin
06112024 – Lack of Afro. Patterns.
21112024 – Alasdair Roberts & Donald WG Lindsay
22112024 – Getdown Services. Hope & Ruin
23112024 – The Orb + Ozric Tentacles

Fully accessible, on one floor. Disabled toilet, ask at bar for key. Full gender neutral toilets. Warning, cobbled floors which are uneven in places. If you require a carer ticket, please contact us at info@lovethyneighbourmusic.co.uk with evidence such as a blue badge or access card. If strobe lighting or standing for long periods of time is an issue, please contact us in advance so we can make arrangements.

Palehound Brighton
Palehound Brighton