DFA graduate Shocking Pinks premieres new single “What’s Up With That Girl?” on Dazed & Confused ☆☆ Triple album Guilt Mirrors releases Feb 18 2014 via Brooklyn imprint Stars & Letters Records
Things are looking up once again for Nick Harte. After a six year hiatus with Shocking Pinks, three earthquakes, a destroyed studio, a family intervention, and a “somewhat voluntary” relocation from Christchurch to Wellington, the former DFA and Flying Nun artist is back on track.
Earlier this year, Harte whittled down hundreds of songs written and recorded over 6 years into a “mixtape” trilogy called Guilt Mirrors, signed with Brooklyn label Stars & Letters Records in the summer, premiered his first new single “Not Gambling” via Pitchfork last month, picked up additional coverage in SPIN, Stereogum, and many more, and today he shares his second single “What’s Up With That Girl?” via Dazed & Confused.
Featuring lead vocals by former Tiger Tones singer Ashlin Frances Raymond, as well as production by Arkitype, “What’s Up With That Girl?” is perhaps one of the most collaborative, yet also most quintessentially Shocking Pinks tracks out there, with Dazed describing the song as “a nervous step into some post-traumatic nightclub, wearing its tetchy hook like alien skin,” with Raymond’s presence “nourishing the music, projecting Harte’s spiritual catatonia outwards.”
“Candy flipping lies or suicide / Fold your stomach close to your eyes / The snow coming through my door / Christians and the like / A real fucking cigarette / I feel like I’m in the film” — lyric excerpt
The Guilt Mirrors trilogy releases February 18, 2014 on Brooklyn label, Stars & Letters Records. The first single “Not Gambling” recently premiered via Pitchfork, the second and latest single “What’s Up With That Girl?” is now available via Dazed & Confused.