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Jul 16, 2025 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Tristan “treestamp” Padron

PL*NET F*TNESS, the new album from San Jose-based indie singer/songwriter Pacing, is all about the everyday. It is an album that attempts to chronicle and make sense of the obligatory, quotidian moments that take up the bulk of our collective lives. “There’s a lot in life that you don’t get to opt out of,” explains Pacing. “Having a job; driving to it. Playing ‘Uno!’ with your family for quality time while waiting for someone to die. Going to sleep; waking up. Paying your parking ticket. Sometimes this is all fine, and other times the weight of all of this obligation is crushing.”

As Pacing, anti-folk singer/songwriter Katie McTigue has spent the past few years crafting disarmingly playful lo-fi indie rock, stripping back the layers of online existence to find the absurdist realities beneath. Although her music is often sparse and unassuming, her deadpan delivery and off-beat song topics find her occupying a similar space to Cheekface’s fuzzy and sardonic style. She debuted with her 2023 album Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen, and shared a new “mini-album” earlier this year, simply entitled songs.

Ahead of the full release of PL*NET F*TNESS next week, McTigue has already shared early listens to the album’s title track, “Nothing (I wanna do),” and “Uno!” Today, she’s back with another new single, “Never Go Down,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Never Go Down” sees McTigue pulling the lyrics from an old Mr. Rogers song, reimagining it as a hypnotic folk chant. Set against some slight guitar work and a waltzing rhythm section, McTigue’s doubled vocals steadily begin to overlap and swirl together into a psychedelic blur, building until the track shifts gears halfway through. From there, McTigue transforms it into an imposing march, now driven by martial drumbeats and incessant strumming that grows quicker and more chaotic until the song reaches its end.

McTigue says of the track, “I have a Mr. Rogers vinyl sitting in my living room that I’ve never listened to. One day I picked it up and started singing the lyrics to one of the songs over some Elliott Smith chords, making up my own melody. The song is called “You Can Never Go Down the Drain,” and it’s a lovely, happy song reassuring children that they do not need to worry about getting sucked into their bathtub drain because they wouldn’t fit.

I think of my version as an unconditional love song for a cult leader. The lines ‘You’re bigger than soap / You’re bigger than water’ take on an ominous tone when combined with repeating ‘You can never go down’ way too many times. Repeating something over and over does not make it true, but it does make you feel kind of powerful.”

Check out the song and accompanying music video below. PL*NET F*TNESS is out on July 25th via Asian Man Records. You can also find Pacing’s upcoming tour dates below.

TOUR DATES:

Supporting AJJ:

• 8/7: El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
• 8/8: Marfa,TX @ Planet Marfa
• 8/9: San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
• 8/10: McAllen, TX @ The Gremlin
• 8/12: New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
• 8/14: Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
• 8/15: Chattanooga, TN @ JJ’s Bohemia
• 8/16: Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
• 8/17: Norfolk, VA @ The Annex
• 8/18: Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
• 8/19: Jersey City, NJ @ White Eagle Hall
• 8/20: Millersville, PA @ Phantom Power
• 8/22: Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant
• 8/23: Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
• 8/25: Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge
• 8/26: Oklahoma City, OK @ Resonant Head
• 8/28: Albuquerque, NM @ NM Sister

PL*NET F*TNESS Release Shows:

• 8/30: Los Angeles, CA @ Scribble with Suzie True & Sun Kin - Pacing album release show
• 9/5: San Jose, CA @ Art Boutiki with The Band Cope - Pacing album release show