New York musician Maia Friedman announces her new album, Goodbye Long Winter Shadow, out May 9th via Last Gang Records, a North American tour with Basia Bulat, and presents a new single/video, “New Flowers.”
Amy Millan– of Stars and Broken Social Scene– has announced her first solo album in over 15 years, I Went To Find You, will be released on May 30, 2025, via Last Gang Records.
She has also shared a first preview of the album in lead single “Wire walks,” a brightly textured, lilting track that highlights her unmistakable, singular voice.
“Getting older is a trip. You assume you’re gonna grow out of feeling like you might fall down a hole any minute, but for me the feeling continues to hover,” Millan explains of the song, which is accompanied by a gorgeous video produced by AOK and made by Luca Tarantini (Andy Shauf, Tanya Tagaq) and Jonah Armitage. “I reference Stars’ ‘Ageless Beauty’ here with the lyric ‘I lied when I said that time would catch your head.’ I thought when I was younger time would mend all wounds, but I was wrong, it does not. Turns out they stick around! So what I have learned with my sage years is to stop trying to dodge and outrun the hard feelings. Embrace the difficult bits, the footprint that made me what I am. When outrunning isn’t working, I might need to lean into what I’ve always been.”
Of the video, she adds: “I wanted to create a dreamscape, a world that doesn’t exist. Wires and ghosts that come alive. Crystal visions and whimsical characters that dance in melting corridors. Luca helped make that vintage vision come to life with new technologies and movements with the song itself.”
Co-written and produced by award-winning musician/composer Jay McCarrol (the critically acclaimed 2023 film BlackBerry), engineered by Jace Lasek (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade), mixed in part by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol), and recorded at Lost River (an idyllic studio deep in the Laurentian forest), I Went To Find You—described by Millan as “Gentle songs for difficult times. I wanted to make a record for your nervous system”—is now available for pre-order.
I Went To Find You emerged from the kind of once-in-a-lifetime serendipity that alters our experience of the world. After crossing paths with McCarrol in fall 2023, the Montreal-based Millan felt a sense of musical communion reminiscent of the elation she’d first accessed in singing with her father as a little girl—a connection severed when her dad was killed in a car accident just before her fifth birthday. As she began creating songs with McCarrol, Millan slowly realized that an unconscious desire to sustain that feeling had informed her lifelong devotion to music and her many cherished collaborations over the years. “I so clearly remember being a kid and putting on my pajamas and being so excited for nighttime, because that’s when my dad and I would sing together,” Millan says. “Ever since then I’ve tried to make my life an arrow back to that feeling, but I didn’t fully understand that until now.”
In selecting a title for her third solo effort, she chose to honor that sense of revelation and self-discovery. “A lot of this record had me looking into my past for clues on who I have become and why,” says Millan, who names longtime musician-friends like Feist, Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, Metric’s James Shaw, Stars’ Chris Seligman, and her husband and Stars bandmate Evan Cranley among the musical kin who’ve profoundly enriched her life. “The ‘you’ of the title is the people I found, the people I went looking for after they’d gone—and the ‘you' is the person you become when all these components align.”
I Went To Find You began taking shape soon after she and McCarrol first linked up at Dream Serenade (an annual fundraiser hosted by singer/songwriter Hayden at Toronto’s Massey Hall). At the suggestion of McCarrol, Millan stepped in for Feist and joined Hayden for a duet on his bittersweet and breezy “On a Beach,” with McCarrol singing backup. “Before the show Jay and I went backstage and sang the song together, and I had this visceral reaction that almost felt like my body going into shock,” she recalls. “I realized I’d spent so long trying to find that vocal harmony that puts me back into a place of bliss and safety.” After Millan returned home and reached out to McCarrol about potentially collaborating at the urging of her best friend, Metric frontwoman Emily Haines, the two soon began work on the long-awaited follow-up to her 2009 sophomore solo LP Masters of the Burial. Over the next two months, they continued their remote collaboration and soon arrived at an album’s worth of material. The result, I Went To Find You, is a consummate vessel for Millan’s delicate yet powerful vocal work, and merges its luminous sound with her most candid songwriting to date. “When I look back at all the songs I’ve ever written, there’s a lot of moments where I’m expressing sadness about a lost love when really there’s a much greater loss at the core,” says Millan. “This record felt like the first time I was able to address that loss without clouding it all in lyrics about boys and whiskey.”
Made with a close-knit lineup of musicians including Cranley—with McCarrol and Lasek also contributing on a number of instruments—I Went To Find You explores such complex and intimate themes as the salvation of longstanding friendship (on the album-opening “Untethered,” partly inspired by Drew), the narrowly escaped consequences of certain reckless behavior in her youth (“The overpass”), and the precarious kinship formed from shared trauma (“Don valley”). As Millan reveals, much of I Went To Find You arose from an attempt at “contending with a mountain of a past and the forking river of the future.” “Everybody’s got their goals they set for themselves, but then once you reach them and feel a little more settled in life there’s that question of, ‘Now what?’” she says. “Meeting Jay was such a welcomed, unanticipated swerve in my creative world. I never expected to have the great luck of yet again experiencing such a profound musical connection with someone new. This brought me deep comfort—thinking that maybe the future is still a big unknown with open doors and opportunities I still get to dream up. So many of these songs are about being a woman moving through the world and trying to analyze all those feelings, and maybe in some way they’ll help others to move through their own lives too.”
PRE-ORDER AMY MILLAN'S I WENT TO FIND YOU (5/30) HERE.
New York, NY (February 5, 2025) - 2024 marked the 20th anniversary of Last Gang Records but the party continues into 2025 as the independent record label continues to roll out a series of covers from its original artist signings, including today’s release of Anand Wilder’s (of Yeasayer) take on the New Pornographer’s classic “Challengers,” feat. Maia Friedman (of Dirty Projectors, Coco). Watch + share the visualizer via YouTube.
Discussing his cover of “Challengers,” Wilder notes, “I had a lot of fun interpreting ‘Challengers’, one of my favorite New Pornographers songs with Maia Friedman in my studio last March. The other cover track we did (‘Love Is A Place,’ by Metric) was super sparse so we decided to make this one a little more full and uptempo with some chimey guitars and drum machines. Maia sang fantastic harmonies as always and ripped a great Frippy guitar solo for the instrumental breakdown which I stitched together for kind of a psychedelic spiraling canon effect over the descending chords. Tested the top of my singing range stacking Fleetwood Macesque harmonies late into the night for the final chorus, for a real anthemic sounding resolution. Thanks to Eric Zeiler for the mix and I hope we did the song justice."
Anand Wilder and Maia Friedman kicked off the cover series last May with Maia’s take on Metric’s “Love Is A Place,” followed by Low Hum’s reinterpretation of Death From Above 1979’s “Romantic Rights,” Alice Ivy’s take on MSTRKRFT’s “Easy Love,” and most recently Dear Boy’s cover of Metric’s “Combat Baby.”
Concurrent with the cover series, has released a series of limited edition 20th anniversary merch items via their shop, along with vinyl re-pressings of Metric’s Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, Mother Mother’s The Sticks, Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton’s Knives Don’t Have Your Backs and Death From Above 1979’s You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine and The Physical World (Eleventh Anniversary Deluxe Edition) with more to be announced. Shop here - https://shop.lastgang.com.
Last Gang Records was founded in 2003 by music industry lawyer Chris Taylor and concert promoter Donald K. Tarlton as a home to the music they loved and believed in. The label was a passion project while the two focused on their day jobs. Last Gang’s first two signings, Metric and Death From Above 1979, released albums in 2004. Both quickly caught fire and turned what was intended to be a hobby into something far more.
Over the past two decades, Last Gang has served as a home to an incredibly diverse array of artists, with the motto of individuality, originality, and an us against the world mentality. Releases from Chromeo, MSTRKRFT, K-os, Ryan Hemsworth, The New Pornographers and A.C. Newman, Stars, Sango, Crystal Castles, and so many more, earning the label multiple gold and platinum-certified records, along with multiple Polaris Prizes, and 20 JUNO Awards, and the independent music sector globally.
“Having joined in 2015 and guiding the label through massive changes since then, it is accurate to say that Last Gang is firmly built into my DNA at this point in my career,” notes SVP MNRK/GM of Last Gang, Chris Moncada. “I am both honored and humbled to have played a part in the label hitting this sensational milestone.”
Today, Last Gang Records is part of MNRK Music Group, and home to artists such as Mondo Cozmo, The Ghost Club, Maia Friedman, Anand Wilder, Stars, Keys N Krates, Low Hum, Noble Oak, Mobley, Loving, Dear Boy, Harrison, Sango, along with Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton and more.
Stay tuned for more!
Last Gang Records is proud to highlight its artists, both past and current, whose music has recently been featured in various films & television, advertisements, and video game uses.
Today, Austin-based writer, performer, producer, filmmaker, and one-man tour de force Mobley announced his new album We Do Not Fear Ruins, set for release on April 23 via Last Gang Records. The genre-promiscuous, sonically expansive concept album continues the story of the character Jacob Creedmoor, first introduced in Mobley’s 2022 EP, Cry Havoc!.
Pre-save 'We Do Not Fear Ruins'
Alongside the announcement, Mobley has shared the album’s lead single + video “No Exit,” first premiered via FLOOD Magazine. Blending retro rock, modern alternative, and futuristic indie sounds, the song opens with a Morricone-inspired whistled motif. Yet, beneath the cinematic swagger and groove, “No Exit” is a meditation on solipsism, solitude, and the “undiscovered country” of the afterlife (an allusion to the famous Hamlet soliloquy). The accompanying video counters the track’s weighty themes with a healthy dose of cheek and dry humor.
Mobley expands, “‘No Exit’ takes its title from the Jean-Paul Sartre play of the same name (best known for the often-misunderstood line ‘hell is other people’). The tension between the song’s laidback verses and earnest, pleading choruses mirrors the tensions in Jacob, a perpetual loner who nevertheless proclaims his love for humanity, crying out ‘What am I without people?’”
Mobley will also be performing a live showcase in Los Angeles on January 28 at The Moroccan Lounge before making his way to Brooklyn on February 11 to perform at Baby’s All Right.
When you don’t fear ruins, “apocalypse” is just another word for opportunity. This is a central theme of Mobley’s forthcoming full-length debut, We Do Not Fear Ruins, an exploration of the intimate, the infinite, and time itself. The project follows the character of Jacob Creedmoor – first introduced in Mobley’s previous EP Cry Havoc! (2022) – an ordinary man who became radicalized into a Robin Hood-esque hero in an alternate version of the early ‘80s United States. Against a backdrop of futuristic art rock, Jacob fought fascism, pulled off daring heists, and was eventually captured by the government and imprisoned in suspended animation. We Do Not Fear Ruins is the next chapter in Mobley’s ongoing sci-fi epic. The story leaps nearly 300 years into the future, when Jacob awakens in a post-apocalyptic, post-U.S. world. Having lost everyone he's known, he navigates grief, memory, and heartbreak through a range of sonic textures as expansive as the wastelands (or possibly afterlife) he finds himself wandering.
When deciding on the most effective sonic palette for his current project, Mobley turned to 1981, the year when Jacob was frozen. "When I listened to some of the songs in the air during that period, I was stunned by the incredible diversity of popular music,” he says. “You had Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, but new wave and funk were still happening. Pop and country were doing a bunch of interesting things. R&B was huge, and there were the first rumblings of hip-hop, as well as vestigial traces of disco."
Despite the sweeping audiovisual scope of Jacob’s saga, the lyrics of We Do Not Fear Ruins remain decidedly internal: an examination of loneliness, yearning, and cautious hope – feelings that are universal, no matter what time period we’re stuck in.
The time spent between Cry Havoc! and now saw Mobley touring coast to coast, writing a forthcoming novel that expounds on We Do Not Fear Ruins’ concept, and composing musical scores for film and stage. Mobley has produced and directed the music for an Adidas commercial during the Paris Olympics and composed the theme for Webby Award-winning SiriusXM & Smithsonian podcast All Music Is Black Music, hosted by Selema Masekela and featuring guests like Kelly Rowland, Ne-Yo, and St. Vincent.
Mobley's songs have racked up millions of streams across Spotify and Apple Music and has landed sync placements on HBO, FOX, NBC, ESPN, and CW, seen airplay adds on Alt Nation, KROQ, KUTX, ACL Radio, and KEXP, and has received praise from outlets like Billboard, Noisey, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Consequence, American Songwriter, and beyond. He's played festivals like ACL, Lollapalooza, and SXSW and has opened for acts like Cold War Kids, Phantogram, James Blake, WAVVES, Sylvan Esso, Matt & Kim, and more.
The present moment finds Mobley focused on the future. He says, “Living with and working through these songs and stories has been the most fulfilling challenge of my artistic life. I can’t wait to share it all and see the life it takes on when it’s no longer just mine.”
We Do Not Fear Ruins Tracklist:
1. The End
2. Only
3. No Exit
4. Let Go
5. Had To Be There
6. Y’r Ghost
7. Phantom Hand
8. Infinite Sunrise
9. Morning Woodwinds
10. Can’t Make You Stay
11. Worriboutta ‘81
12. Ego is
13. Now Forever
14. A Story You’d Tell at a Party
15. Yesterday’s Another Day
16. The End?
Live dates:
Jan 28 Los Angeles, CA @ The Moroccan Lounge
Feb 11 Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
New York musician Maia Friedman presents a gorgeous new single/video, “On Passing,” via Last Gang Records/MNRK. This is Maia’s first new piece of solo music since 2022’s Under The New Light, her “immersive and intricate” (The Line of Best Fit) debut. Co-produced with Philip Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Billie Marten, Florist) and Oliver Hill (Magdalena Bay, Helado Negro, Wet), “On Passing” unfurls beautifully with fingerpicked guitar and serene woodwinds.
***Click to save/stream Maia Friedman's "On Passing"
The track’s sublime lyrics illustrates her embrace of her own poetic lens, focusing on the beauty of the miniscule: “As you drift along // you float on course to Eden // hoping the waves will take you all the way to where you come from // Where we all come from // And from up above // the leaves fall as they ought to // crossing in hatchback upon currents in the air.”
The accompanying video was made by Ryan Faist and is composed of footage shot by Maia.
Maia penned “On Passing” “as the health of two close friends were in rapid decline, with illnesses that led to both of their untimely deaths,” she elaborates. “Processing end-of-life is at once entirely natural and human, and at the same time, entirely abstract and unimaginable. It feels impossible to fathom, thus we vacillate through emotions; despair, anger, disbelief, confusion, and often eventually settle into a permanent melancholy (the quiet sadness) that will forever be tied to the memory of those we’ve lost. I find it healing to celebrate these memories in ephemeral moments of magic; a leaf falling from a tree, the glint and reflection of sun on water, a particular scent in the air, a bird that visits our windowsill unexpectedly.”
The palette Maia Friedman summons in her music has been described as lush, wise, and evocative. Drawing from her upbringing in the Sierra National Forest region of California, she often invokes a devotion to the natural world in her writing—an attunement to what is wild and divine in both the existential and the everyday. Her voice is a captivating centerpiece, lending a unique quality of warm comfort to every syllable.
Under The New Light garnered support from Rolling Stone, NPR Music, and BBC among others, and amassed over five million streams with widespread playlisting support. She performed the record in the US and Europe, sharing stages with Bedouine, Charlotte Day Wilson, Lord Huron, and Durand Jones & the Indications. In the two years since Under The New Light, Maia wrote, recorded, and toured with her various collaborative projects and gave birth to her daughter. This series of transformative experiences inspired new creative desires – to observe the world with unwavering empathy, to explore fresh musical colors, and to commit fully to world-building. There will be more new music from Friedman coming in 2025.
Written and Produced by Mobley —
Available Now on All Streaming Platforms: Listen | Watch
(October 16, 2024) Acclaimed indie singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mobley returns with his deeply evocative new single, "Y'r Ghost," via Last Gang. Written and produced by Mobley himself, this release marks a return for the artist, who has not put out any new music since 2022. The track blends raw emotion with captivating sonic textures, offering a poignant reflection on love, loss, and longing.
"Y'r Ghost" is steeped in themes of heartbreak, capturing the fragility of relationships through haunting melodies and dynamic production. Mobley’s soulful vocals, paired with his intricate arrangements, make for an immersive listening experience that tugs at the heartstrings.
Mobley says, “‘Y’r Ghost’ marks the return of Jacob Creedmoor, the protagonist from my last record, Cry Havoc!. It finds him reminiscing about the night he met the love of his life and mourning her loss and the fact that she’s fading in his memory. The song’s shifts in mood and energy mirror the turmoil of our lovelorn hero while the lyrics hint at a larger story still waiting to be told.”
Mobley released the EP Cry Havoc! on Last Gang in September 2022, which was a thrilling introduction to a new sonic and narrative world. The collection of songs was as captivating as they were catchy. The EP served as a prelude to a forthcoming science-fiction epic from the prolific artist. More steeped in narrative than any of Mobley’s previous work, all seven tracks on Cry Havoc! were from the point of view of Jacob Creedmoor, an ordinary man who becomes radicalized into a Robin Hood-esque figure over the course of the EP.
Mother Mother has released a 7-track EP titled Mother. The songs were initially on the bands’ first 2005 release, with several now available for the first time digitally.
The band (initially called Mother) released a self-titled CD in 2005. Many of those songs were re-recorded and/or re-released on Mother Mother’s (as they were eventually called) next album Touch Up.
**Click to save/stream the Mother EP
This new Mother EP includes four of the songs that didn’t make it onto Touch Up: “Fat Kids,” “Babies,” “Mama Told Me,” and “Home Recording,” plus two songs that were eventually re-recorded: “O Ana,” and “Dirty Town.”
Vocalist/guitarist Ryan Guldemond says,“We’ve been holding onto these for a while now (one might say two decades) and are so excited to finally share these four unreleased songs from our 2005 self-titled debut album, Mother, along with early versions of ‘Oh Ana’ and ‘Dirty Town.’ This music is near and dear to our hearts as it harkens back to an early iteration of the band, and ultimately our roots. We hope our fans appreciate a little look into the past.”
New 'O My Heart' pressed on 12” 180g single LP marble ruby vinyl, and limited to 1,000 copies worldwide. Pre-order now, expected to ship October 31, 2024.
Tracklist:
1. O My Heart
2. Burning Pile
3. Body of Years
4. Try To Change
5. Wisdom
6. Body
7. Ghosting
8. Hayloft
9. Wrecking Ball
10. Arms Tonite
11. Miles
12. Sleep Awake
