Rising singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers has confirmed details of her sophomore solo album, “Punisher,” to be released on Dead Oceans on June 19th. She follows her recent single “Garden Song” with a new track and video called “Kyoto”. Bridgers will also perform the song on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday – live from her bathroom in Los Angeles, it says here – in February.
The initial plan for the “Kyoto” video was to shoot in Japan in March 2020. When the trip was canceled – for obvious reasons – the video was completed with a green screen in Los Angeles. Says Phoebe Bridgers of the track, “This song is about imposter syndrome.
About being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go and play my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I’m living someone else’s life. I dissociate when bad things happen to me, but also when good things happen. It can feel like I’m performing what I think I’m supposed to be like.
I wrote this one as a ballad first, but at that point, I was so sick of recording slow songs, it turned into this.”
Since she first emerged in 2017 with her acclaimed debut “stranger in the Alps,” the prolific Bridgers has collaborated with kindred spirits Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus in the Jokingly referenced “supergroup” Boygenius on a 2018 EP and tour, and with Bright Eyes founder Conor Oberst on the “Better Oblivion community Centre” album last year.
According to the announcement, the songs for “Punisher” were written and recorded between the summer of 2018 and the fall of 2019, and were coproduced by Phoebe Bridgers with “Stranger in the Alps” collaborators Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska. Other collaborators on the album include Oberst, Baker, Grammy-Winning producer and musician Blake Mills, yeah yeah yeah guitarist Nick Zinner and legendary drummer Jim Keltner.
