• News

• All

Jan 15, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Jake Michaels Real Estate

Real Estate have announced a new album, The Main Thing, and shared its first single, “Paper Cup,” which features Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, via a video for the track. The Main Thing is due out February 28 via Domino. Check out “Paper Cup” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Real Estate’s current lineup is Martin Courtney, Alex Bleeker, Jackson Pollis, Matthew Kallman, and Julian Lynch. Their last album was 2017’s In Mind, also on Domino. Kevin McMahon, who worked on the band’s 2011 album Days, produced The Main Thing, which was recorded over the course of a year at Upstate New York’s Marcata Sound studio. Nick Roney directed the “Paper Cup” video.

Courtney had this to say about “Paper Cup” in a press release: “‘Paper Cup’ is a song about getting older and realizing that this thing that I fell into doing over 10 years ago - being a musician, writing songs, being a guy in a band - this may end up being my life’s work. Watching the people around me change and evolve, take on new challenges, and feeling sort of stuck in a rut, in a way. Feeling uncertain of the validity of being an artist in an age of climate change and general political and social unrest around the world. It’s a song about questioning your chosen path in life and searching for meaning in what you do. Those questions don’t really get resolved in this song, but ironically, the process of making this record - really diving deep and trying to make it the best thing we’ve ever made - reaffirmed in me, and I think in all of us in this band, why we are doing this.”

Bleeker had this to say about the album: “We discovered through the care and attention that we brought to this record that making music to resonate with other people is our catharsis. The ‘main thing’ is following your path of inspiration and hoping to inspire that in people around you.”

Read our 2017 interview with Real Estate about In Mind.

Real Estate’s Martin Courtney also released a solo album in 2015, Many Moons. Read our interview with Courtney about it. Also Courtney did a joint interview with actor Jason Schwartzman for our Best of 2014 issue and you can read that here.

The Main Thing Tracklist:

01. Friday
02. Paper Cup (feat. Sylvan Esso)
03. Gone
04. You
05. November
06. Falling Down
07. Also a But
08. The Main Thing
09. Shallow Sun
10. Sting
11. Silent World
12. Procession
13. Brother

Real Estate 2020 Tour Dates:

4/9 - El Club - Detroit, MI*
4/10 - Thalia Hall - Chicago, IL*
4/11 - First Avenue - Minneapolis, MN*
4/13 - Slowdown - Omaha, NE*
4/14 - The Truman - Kansas City, MO*
4/15 - The Ready Room - St. Louis, MO*
4/16 - The Vogue - Indianapolis, IN*
4/17 - Brooklyn Bowl Nashville - Nashville, TN*
4/18 - Variety Playhouse - Atlanta, GA*
4/20 - Cat’s Cradle - Chapel Hill, NC*
4/21 - 9:30 Club - Washington, DC*
4/22 - Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA*
4/23 - Royale - Boston, MA*
5/7 - Fox Theater - Oakland, CA†
5/8 - The Fonda Theater - Los Angeles, CA†
5/9 - Belly Up Tavern - San Diego, CA†
5/10 - The Crescent Ballroom - Phoenix, AZ†
5/12 - The Granada Theater - Dallas, TX†
5/13 - Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater - Austin, TX†
5/14 - White Oak Music Hall - Houston, TX†
5/18 - Gothic Theatre - Denver, CO#
5/19 - Urban Lounge - Salt Lake City, UT#
5/21 - Neptune Theatre - Seattle, WA#
5/22 - Revolution Hall - Portland, OR#

*with Palm
†with Meg Baird
#with Itasca

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.