Rhyme Report

Published on February 23rd, 2024 | by Just Jay

MANNEQUIN PUSSY Share New Single “Nothing Like” & Announce 2024 European Tour

Mannequin Pussy release a mind-bending video for their new single “Nothing Like.” On the yearning song, which is anchored by a dancey, shuffling drum beat from Kaleen Reading, Marisa Dabice’s voice eventually morphs from a coo to a roar as she sings, “Oh what’s wrong with dreaming of burning this all down?” The video was created by AI artist and director Connor Clarke with creative direction by Anthony Miralles and Mason Mercer of Slips Studios.

Of the song, Dabice says “‘Nothing Like’ is pure fantasy. Originally inspired by a stoned out night 6 years ago spent watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which Buffy is forced to kill her lover, Angel, before he destroys the world. The song existed in fragments until it finally met its final form last year. Young love is so often all consuming, dangerous, and heightened to mythological proportions – ‘Nothing Like’ sought to mix the balance of both the light feelings of new love and the absolute depths that obsession can bring you to.”

Additionally, the band expands their tour in support of I Got Heaven, adding Europe dates to their previously announced North America tour. All dates below.

WATCH THE “NOTHING LIKE” VIDEO

I Got Heaven, due March 1st on Epitaph Records, is the band’s most fully realized LP yet. Over 10 ambitious tracks that abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act ,” says Dabice. “The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.”

I Got Heaven, an album filled with cathartic tunes about despairing times, is a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive.

Mannequin Pussy is Colins “Bear” Regisford, Kaleen Reading, Maxine Steen and Marisa Dabice.

Tour Dates:

4/4 – Millersville, PA @ Phantom Power

4/5 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall – SOLD OUT

4/6 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry – SOLD OUT

4/8 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall

4/10 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall – SOLD OUT

4/11 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi Indy

4/12 – Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop – SOLD OUT

4/13 – Columbus, OH @ The King of Clubs

4/15 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East

4/16 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West

4/18 – Fort Worth, TX @ Tulips

4/19 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues Bronze Peacock

4/20 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk

4/22 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf

4/24 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom

4/26 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda

4/27 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall – SOLD OUT

4/29 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom

4/30 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile – SOLD OUT

5/2 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell

5/4 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater

5/5 – Fort Collins, CO @ Aggie Theatre

5/7 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line

5/8 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre – UPGRADED VENUE

5/10 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall – UPGRADED VENUE

5/11 – Toronto, ON @ The Concert Hall – UPGRADED VENUE

5/13 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair – SOLD OUT

5/14 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair – SOLD OUT

5/16 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel

5/17 – Washington, DC @ The Atlantis – SOLD OUT

5/18 – Washington, DC @ The Atlantis – SOLD OUT

5/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer – SOLD OUT

5/23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer

5/30 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Festival

6/1 – Linz, AU @ SBAM Festival

6/2 – Mannheim, DE @ Maifeld Derby Festival

6/4 – Paris, FR @ Le Petit Bain

6/5 – Lille, FR @ L’Aeronef

6/6 – Brussels, BE @ TRIX

6/7 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival

6/8 – Porto, PT @ Primavera Festival

6/11 – Berlin, DE @ Cssiopeia

6/12 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Club

6/13 – Cologne, DE @ MTC

6/15 – Brighton, UK @ Chalk

6/16 – Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew

6/18 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts

6/19 – Nottingham, UK @ Rescue Rooms

6/20 – London, UK @ Scala

6/21 – Southampton, UK @ Joiners

6/30 – Manchester, UK @ Outbreak Festival

8/23 – Reading, UK @ Reading Festival

8/25 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival

Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album Patience, Mannequin Pussy returned in 2021 for their EP Perfect. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist Maxine Steen to the band’s official lineup. Where the band members’ personal lives were in transition with breakups, changing living situations, and periods of self-reevaluation, their time together on the road was a grounding and clarifying force. “There was so much going on in our lives that it was the perfect opportunity to recalibrate who we were as people and musicians,” says Regisford. The band changed their entire formula, choosing to write together in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton over slowly crafting tracks at home. “When I’ve written songs, it’s usually a very solitary process,” says Dabice. “So this was shedding a lot of those hermit-like qualities to do something intensively collaborative. Your best work comes when you allow other people into it.”

By December 2022, the band had 17 new songs written with Congleton in Los Angeles. “Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could possibly be,” says Regisford. New member Maxine Steen, who has made music with Dabice for years including their side project Rosie Thorne, was especially essential to the writing sessions.

WATCH VIDEOS PREVIOUSLY RELEASED SINGLES

“I GOT HEAVEN,”

“I DON’T KNOW YOU,”

“SOMETIMES”

The album opener “I Got Heaven” initially started as one of Steen’s demos. “When she showed it to me I knew it was going to be fun because the verses have this hard-hitting and aggressive approach but the chorus allows for a really soaring melody,” says Dabice. The result is electric. Over walloping guitar riffs, Dabice defiantly yells, “And what if I’m an angel? Oh what if I’m a bore? And what if I was confident would you just hate me more?

The song with its righteous lyrical blending of the sacred and profane is an unapologetic look at Christian hypocrisy. “I don’t think there’s ever been anything in need of a spiritual revolution more than modern-day Christianity,” says Dabice. “It sickens me the way that people use it as a way to do the worst things imaginable, say the worst things imaginable, and pass the worst imaginable legislation that directly harms people.” Instead of judgment, greed, and avarice, the songs on I Got Heaven ask what it really means to genuinely care about the people around you and help your communities in ways you can. “The world that we live in is heaven,” says Dabice. “We live on the most beautiful planet in the solar system, just by a chance and we are continuingly destroying it.”

This sentiment is mirrored by the album’s cover art: a figure and a pig in nature. There’s an intentional ambiguity there that makes you wonder if this person is leading the animal to slaughter or its protector. “We should really be the shepherds and the protectors of everything that we have and the world we live in,” says Dabice. I Got Heaven is an album that understands the stakes of its message: there are countless references to fire, hunger, and holiness. Here, teeth gnash and bodies are temples that ache with desire.

Even when the songs on I Got Heaven don’t deal with fundamental human questions about how to live, Mannequin Pussy still finds ways to add urgency and resonance. Just take the buoyant and playful single “I Don’t Know You,” which slowly builds to a hair-raising peak with Reading’s brushed percussion, Steen’s enveloping synths, and a thoughtful groove from Regisford. “On that song, I changed the tuning last minute which transformed the song but everyone instinctively knew what to do,” says Dabice. “It was really cool to watch a song come alive in real-time. It’s such a gift to meet other people who are creatively on the same wavelength as you, where there’s no judgment in sharing ideas.”

I Got Heaven is a visceral and stunning album for people who aren’t content with the status quo, made by people who challenged themselves and got out of their comfort zone. ”We’re supposed to be living in the freest era ever so what it means to be a young person in this society is the freedom to challenge these systems that have been put on to us,” says Dabice. “It makes sense to ask, what ultimately am I living for? What is it that makes me want to live?”