• News

• All

Jun 24, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers released a new album, Punisher, last week via Dead Oceans, putting it out one day early. Last night she performed the album’s “I See You” on The Late Late Show with James Corden, but in a nod to his Carpool Karaoke series she did so while driving a car. She was also interviewed by Corden (who is doing his show from his garage during the pandemic). Watch it below.

Punisher includes “Garden Song,” a new song she shared in February via a video for it. “Garden Song” was #1 on our Songs of the Week list. Then when the album was announced, Bridgers shared another song from it, “Kyoto,” via a Nina Ljeti-directed video for the track that featured Bridgers flying around a city and battling Godzilla. “Kyoto” was also #1 on our Songs of the Week list. Then she performed “Kyoto” for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but because of COVID-19 social distancing she did so remotely, from her bathtub at home, dressed in her pajamas and accompanied by only a synthesizer on her lap. Then she shared another single from the album, “I See You,” via a lyric video featuring hand shadow puppets (it was also one of our Songs of the Week). She also embarked on the “Phoebe Bridgers’ World, Tour,” which was a series of livestream concerts from different rooms in her house. When the album was released its closing track “I Know the End” also made our Songs of the Week list.

Punisher is her sophomore album, the follow-up to her acclaimed debut album, Stranger in the Alps, released in September 2017 via Dead Oceans. For Punisher she reteamed with Stranger in the Alps’ producers/collaborators Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, although this time Bridgers co-produced the album with them. Mike Mogis mixed the album, as he did with her debut.

Punisher features Bridgers’ main band: Marshall Vore (drums), Harrison Whitford (guitar), Emily Retsas (bass), and Nick White (piano). But the album also features a slew of notable guests: Conor Oberst (“Halloween,” “I Know The End”), Lucy Dacus (“Graceland Too,” “I Know The End”), Julien Baker (“Graceland Too,” “I Know the End”), Blake Mills (“Halloween,” “Savior Complex,” and “I Know the End”), Jenny Lee Lindberg (“Kyoto,” “ICU”), Christian Lee Hutson (“Garden Song,” “Halloween,” “Savior Complex,” “I Know the End”), Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner (“I Know the End”), legendary drummer Jim Keltner (“Halloween” and “Savior Complex”), and Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on horns (“Kyoto” and “I Know the End”).

Bridgers has been plenty busy since the release of Stranger in the Alps.

She sang guest vocals on a new song by The 1975, “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America,” which was featured on their recent album, Notes On a Conditional Form, and was one of our Songs of the Week.

In 2018 she teamed up with fellow singer/songwriters Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus to form supergroup boygenius, whose self-titled debut EP was released in October 2018 via Matador.

In 2019 Bridgers teamed up with Conor Oberst for the side-project Better Oblivion Community Center, who released their self-titled debut album last year via Dead Oceans. In February Oberst and Bridgers also appeared in a video for Conan O’Brien’s TBS show Conan, which has launched a new fake behind the scenes web series, Meet the Conan Staff. In one episode Oberst and Bridgers play production assistants on the show. Oberst can’t help but break into song during the staff meetings, much to the annoyance of O’Brien and his other employees, especially as his songs are usually quite depressing. Bridgers, meanwhile, is very well liked.

In March Bridgers shared a video of her covering Oberst’s “Mamah Borthwick (A Sketch)” from home, as artists have been doing during the COVID-19 quarantine. She did so to benefit Los Angeles’ Bootleg Theater, which has had to close down during the pandemic. There’s a GoFundMe campaign to help pay the staff while they are shut down, which she has linked to. Bridgers says she met Oberst at the Bootleg, hence the cover of the song from his 2016 solo album Ruminations.

Last December Bridgers shared the new Christmas track, “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night,” which featured Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger (of The National). Last October Bridgers and Berninger also teamed up for the new song, “Walking On a String,” which they performed in Netflix’s Between Two Ferns: The Movie. Then they shared a studio version of the song via a black & white video featuring them recording it, making “Walking On a String” one of our Songs of the Week.

Read our 2017 exclusive interview with Phoebe Bridgers and check out our photo-shoot with her.

Read our 2019 cover story interview with boygenius.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.