Mamalarky – Hex Key
Today, Mamalarky, the tri-coastal indie rock quartet, announce their new album, Hex Key, with a video for its high-octane and rambunctious lead single “#1 Best of All Time.”
Hex Key, the band’s Epitaph Records debut out April 11th, is an intricate, endlessly curious album full of sonic left turns and playful genre implosions. On it Mamalarky expertly pastiche sounds, time signatures, and moods together to create delightful, singular songs bursting with feeling.
In making their third record, Hex Key, Mamalarky spent entire seasons hunched over guitars and obscure synthesizers, their long hair sweeping over strings or covering concentrated eyes. The band recorded takes in between the sounds of passing ice cream trucks and yowling stray cats in their Los Angeles home studio, a tight but prolific living room. Hex Key is a document of perseverance, of going for the gold while somehow remaining totally aware of one’s own vulnerabilities. These effervescent, swirling songs chronicle vivid desires crashing against real-life limitations but finding a way to keep burning anyway. That tension between anguish and resilience, between performed aloofness and brutal honesty, drives the music, imbues it with a compelling intensity.
Mamalarky is Livvy Bennett, Noor Khan, Michael Hunter and Dylan Hill.
“Through a lot of games of UNO I’ve discovered I’m actually a pretty competitive person. And somehow, the feeling of losing has become highly motivating to me. I always feel like I’m competing against myself, trying to best my last attempt at whatever I’ve set out to do. Like, you probably can’t be the best of all time, but you’ll always be the best you of all time–no one can dispute that,” Livvy Bennett explains. “I wanted to write something that felt powerful but funny, too, like laughing in the face of doubt. Cause betting on yourself even when you feel like a losing horse pays off in big ways! If you can make yourself feel like you’re winning right at the moment of failure and only measure yourself against your own barometers, you’re gonna be a lot happier.
When we recorded this, we asked Dylan to just play something ‘crazy’ on the drums and worked backwards from there. He powered through this insane performance and the song came together autonomously from there.”
Tour Dates:
3/21 – The Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA *
3/22 – SLO Brew – San Luis Obispo, CA *
3/23 – The New Paris – Oakland, CA *
3/27 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA *
3/28 – Wise Hall – Vancouver, BC *
3/29 – Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR *
3/30 – Treefort Fest – Boise, ID *
4/1 – Meow Wolf – Santa Fe, NM *
4/3 – Resonant Head – Oklahoma City, OK *
4/4 – Rubber Gloves – Denton, TX *
4/5 – Hotel Vegas – Austin, TX *
4/8 – The Underground – Mesa. AZ *
4/9 – Music Box – San Diego, CA *
* w/ Hinds
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