• News

• All

Jun 27, 2023 By Kat Ramkumar Photography by Alexa Viscius

Arcade Fire’s Will Butler has announced a new self-titled album with Will Butler + Sister Squares and shared a music video for their new song, “Long Grass.” The group have also announced some fall tour dates in support of their new album. Will Butler + Sister Squares is due out September 22 via Merge. Check out the video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the upcoming performances.

Butler left Arcade Fire at the end of 2021 and had spent the preceding two years at home with his children. “I was waking up every morning and reading Emily Dickinson, until I had read every Emily Dickinson poem,” says Butler. “I was listening to Morrissey, to Shostakovich, to the Spotify top 50. I had unformed questions with inchoate answers.”

Sister Squares—who are Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Sarah Dobbs—all came together through familial word of mouth. “I met Jenny—my wife!—in college, the year before I joined Arcade Fire. When I needed a band to tour Policy,” says Butler, referring to his 2015-released solo debut album, “I asked [Jenny’s sister] Julie to join because I trusted her musically. And I asked Sara, Jenny and Julie’s childhood friend, because I knew she was super talented.”

“Antibalas (who I was drumming for) opened some Arcade Fire shows,” says Francis, who offered to play drums anytime Will needed. Together, they became Will Butler + Sister Squares. Butler was initially set on making a solo record, ideally alone in the basement, but he found himself relying on the band for feedback on lyrics and song structures. Miles Francis produced the record.

Of the song “Long Grass,” Butler says: “I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s. It’s about an artist looking back on his childhood in a small town in Kyrgyzstan in WWII. It’s about love, and becoming an artist, and melancholy, and vast landscapes with a single train track running through them. And it reminded me of young adulthood, of wandering moodily down the train tracks. Maybe the song is also about leaving behind the things that formed us, but trying to remember the world as it used to be?

Read our 2015 interview with Butler on Policy.

Will Butler + Sister Squares Tracklist:

1. Open
2. Stop Talking
3. Willows
4. Long Grass
5. Me & My Friends
6. Saturday Night
7. Car Crash
8. Sunlight
9. Arrow of Time
10. I Am Standing in a Room
11. Good Friday, 1613
12. Old Year
13. Hee Loop
14. The Window

Will Butler + Sister Squares Tour Dates:

July 29-30 - Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival
Sept. 23 - Brooklyn, NY @ Zone One
Oct. 3 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
Oct. 4 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Oct. 6 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Oct. 7 - Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Oct. 8 - Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Oct. 17 - Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts
Oct. 18 - Montreal, QC @ Bar le Ritz
Oct. 19 - Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
Oct. 20 - Detroit, MI @ Loving Touch
Oct. 21 - Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
Oct. 22 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
Nov. 7 - Riga, LV @ Palladium
Nov. 10 - Berlin, DE @ Privatclub
Nov. 12 - Aarhus, DK @ VoxHall
Nov. 14 - Rotterdam, NL @ Rotown
Nov. 15 - Paris, FR @ Café de la Danse
Nov. 16 - Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Nov. 17 - London, UK @ ICA
Nov. 18 - Dublin, IE @ Whelan’s
Nov. 30 - Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
Dec. 1 - Washington, DC @ DC9
Dec. 2 - Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall Support Under the Radar on Patreon.