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Aug 04, 2020 Sad13 By Christopher Roberts

Sad13, the project led by Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz, is a vampire who bakes cakes and other goodies to lure in her victims in the video for her new song “Oops…!” It’s the latest single to be taken from her new album, Haunted Painting, which is due out September 25 via Wax Nine. Kimber-Lee Alston wrote, directed, and edited the video remotely. Watch it below.

Dupuis had this to say about the song in a press release: “We recorded ‘Oops…!’ at New Monkey, which was Elliott Smith’s studio. This one has a magic drum sound—thanks entirely to engineer Sarah Tudzin (of Illuminati Hotties notoriety), and Zoë Brecher’s impeccable playing. Just before writing it, on tour with CHVRCHES, a venue employee became physically and verbally violent with one of my Speedy Ortiz bandmates. He directed his fake apology at me instead of the person he harmed, presumably because I am smaller and present feminine. My vengeance complex kicked in and I got a scary adrenaline high making sure this unsafe person was removed from the show. While I’m glad I have protective instincts, I wrote the song to process ways in which I’ve used people’s assumptions about me and my body to wield my own version of toxic masculinity. Kimber-Lee Alston, who directed remotely via Zoom, turned this story and song into an allegory about a 1950s prom queen vampire who lures in her bad boy victims with delicious, blood-filled treats.”

Previous Dupuis shared the album’s first single, “Ghost (of a Good Time),” via a video for the track, which Dupuis said is a “party song about not going out.” The album also includes “WTD?,” a new song Sad13 shared via Adult Swim Singles in May. “WTD?” was one of our Songs of the Week.

Haunted Painting is the sophomore Sad13 album, the follow-up to 2016’s Slugger. The album was recorded at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco and New Monkey Studio in Van Nuys, California, a studio that was built by Elliott Smith in the 2000s not long before he died. The album was made exclusively with women engineers, including mixer Sarah Tudzin (Weyes Blood, Illuminati Hotties), tracking engineers Erin Tonkon (David Bowie, Esperanza Spalding) and Maryam Qudus (Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, mxmtoon), and “mastering legend” Emily Lazar (Beck, Dolly Parton). It also features guest vocals from from Helado Negro’s Roberto Lange, Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki, Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, and Pile’s Rick Maguire. Zoë Brecher plays drums throughout the album.

Dupuis had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “I worked on Haunted Painting throughout 2019, writing, arranging and recording from home, then finishing the songs in studios around the country in between Speedy’s fly-in dates. It’s maximalist, and more true to me and my tastes than any record I’ve done.”

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