Sometime Old-97er Rhett Miller has released a new single ‘Go Through You’ taken from his forthcoming album ‘The Misfit’ which lands on September 16th via ATO Records – you can listen to it below. The 11-song collection was co-written and produced by Miller’s Hudson Valley, NY neighbor Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Sharon Van Etten, Danger Mouse) and continues their musical partnership that began on 2018’s ‘The Messenger’.
“Every songwriter has a favorite skin they inhabit, a story they tell over and over again. For decades I’ve been writing from the perspective of a sad sack loser, a ‘broken guy.’ He isn’t who I am in real life, but for whatever reason when I sit down to write a song I often become him, picking at old wounds, bemoaning my perceived victimization. The funny thing is that he’s, well, funny. I wouldn’t want to be the sad clown in real life, but thanks to songs like ‘Go Through You,’ I don’t have to,” explains Miller. “For the production on ‘Go Through You,’ Sam Cohen created a sonic world adjacent to Jeff Lynne’s work with Traveling Wilburys. I’m in love with the sounds he came up with. It’s all the things – hooky, bouncy, bubbly, catchy… Try listening to this song without smiling. Good luck.”
The 11 songs that comprise The Misfit are an elegant blurring of psychedelia, dream pop, and electronic-leaning indie rock, grounded by the vulnerable songwriting and unaffected vocal presence Miller has perfected as the frontman for legendary alt-country band Old 97’s for the last three decades.
“Making this album was the closest thing I’d ever experienced to being part of something magic,” Miller explains of his collaborative process with Sam Cohen. “As we were working we kept returning to the relationship between David Bowie and Brian Eno and the records they made together, and how fearless they were in their approach to finding the songs,” says Miller of the collaborative process. “It turned into a routine where every morning I’d leave home and drive over the mountain to his house, and by that evening we’d have a rough mix of a new song. The speed of creation was absolutely wild; in some ways I can’t even believe it happened.”
The Misfit tracklist:
1) Heart Attack Days
2) Follow You Home
3) Go Through You
4) Already There
5) Just When It Gets Good
6) Beautiful Life
7) Fascination
8) The White Tops
9) Let Me Go There With You
10) Twelve Thirty Four
11) You’ll Be Glad
