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Oct 31, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Jonah Freeman

MGMT (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser) have officially announced a new album, Loss of Life, and shared its first single, “Mother Nature,” via a music video. Loss of Life is due out February 23, 2024 via Mom + Pop and will be the band’s first new album in six years. Longtime collaborator Jordan Fish directed the “Mother Nature” video, which combines animation with live action. Watch it below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork.

In a press release, MGMT collectively say that “Mother Nature” “outlines the archetypical MGMT mythology of one hero attempting to get the other hero to come on the journey that they ‘must’ go on. One part sounds like Oasis.”

The song’s video is about two animal friends, simply named Dog and Turtle, who “team up to take down an evil pet collector,” according to the press release.

“I hope the story makes people happy and feel connected to family, friends and the animal kingdom as well,” says Fish.

Loss of Life is the band’s fifth album and the follow-up to 2018’s Little Dark Age, which many viewed as a return to form and was released via Columbia (as were their previous albums). Little Dark Age’s title track became a viral hit during the pandemic and is the band’s third most streamed song of all-time, behind their early hits “Electric Feel” and “Kids.”

This time the duo worked with producer Patrick Wimberly (Beyoncé, Lil Yachty) and longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon). As he’s done with all their previous albums, Fridmann mixed Loss of Life. There also additional production work done on the album by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and James Richardson. Miles A. Robinson was also an associate producer and engineer on the album.

Loss of Life includes the first ever feature appearance on an MGMT album when Christine and the Queens appear on the song “Dancing in Babylon.”

MGMT had this to say about Loss of Life: “All joking aside (never!), we are very proud of this album and the fact that it was a relatively painless birth after a lengthy gestation period, and are happy to be releasing this baby into the world with Mom+Pop. Musically speaking, we are running at around 20% adult contemporary and no more than this, please.”

Writer/director/The Best Show co-host Tom Scharpling has written an essay about Loss of Life and had this to say: “Simply put, the guys did it again! They’re now five-for-five, which last time I checked gets you into virtually any Hall of Fame. This record projects an aura of undeniable warmth throughout, an album brimming with comfortable confidence. There are epic tracks and intimate portraits, a little bit of glam here, some psych-folk there. It’s a slice of magic that fits perfectly into the MGMT oeuvre while expanding the boundaries once again.”

The album’s cover artwork is a 2006 painting by John Baldessari, Noses & Ears, Etc. (Part Two): Two (Flesh) Faces with (Blue) Ears and Noses, Two (Flesh) Hands, and Hobby Horse, 2006.

Read our 2018 interview with MGMT on Little Dark Age.

Loss of Life Tracklist:

1. Loss of Life (part 2)
2. Mother Nature
3. Dancing in Babylon (featuring Christine and the Queens)
4. People in the Streets
5. Bubblegum Dog
6. Nothing to Declare
7. Nothing Changes
8. Phradie’s Song
9. I Wish I Was Joking
10. Loss of Life

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