Pre-orders are scheduled to ship February 5, 2027.
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Palehound is coming full circle.
Nearly 15 years into a career defined by DIY musicianship, bolstered by a village of like-minded artists and friends, El Kempner has achieved a tremendous number of accolades at just 32. They’ve shared stages with everyone from Jason Isbell to Sleater-Kinney, Big Thief, Jimmy Eat World, Julia Jacklin, and Boygenius. They’ve learned vital lessons about friendship, musicianship, and growing up in the spotlight. They’ve even recirculated that wisdom by teaching at NYU’s Clive Davis school. Now, as they prepare to release their vigorous and introspective fifth LP, You Sing Like You’re Joking, Kempner is moving into the future by looking to the past.
Hailed as one of Rolling Stone’s “Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” and renowned for their lyrical ability to spin universal yarns out of deeply personal moments, Kempner is operating at the peak of their talents on their fifth LP, which showcases their prowess for fretwork as it expands to include bass guitar, while further honing their skills in production.
Ahead of recording You Sing Like You’re Joking, which arrives on Polyvinyl four years after their critically acclaimed 2023 album, Eye On The Bat, Kempner reconnected with old friend and co-producer Julian Fader (Ava Luna), who brought in a new friend to co-produce – Katie Von Schleicher (Frankie Cosmos). Recorded at Honey Jar Studios in Brooklyn and Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s studio in Chapel Hill, Kempner, Fader, and Von Schleicher created a stirring nine-track body of work where Kempner felt safe to say everything in their heart and on their mind.
“I came full circle in my artistic process of taking control and working with people who I felt really held by and really inspired by,” Kempner says of reuniting with Fader, who recorded the acclaimed 2013 Bent Nail EP when they were still a teenager.
Also featuring contributions from Nick Hakim, who plays piano on “Incisions,” organ on “The Midwest,” and synthesizer on “Target,” You Sing Like You’re Joking finds Kempner surveying the tectonic shifts in their life and career, which has blossomed in ways they never anticipated when they were starting out in Boston’s DIY scene in the early 2010s.
And yet Kempner’s successes have been punctured by loss; much of the album grapples with broken and distanced friendships. To that end, You Sing Like You’re Joking (a lyric pulled from opening track “Incisions”) acts as a catch-all for Kempner’s approach to relationships, which is marked by always wanting to go deeper. “I felt like it really encapsulated all the emotions of the record, which is just me trying to get to know people, trying to connect, and having a barrier or feeling resistance.”
For the past decade, since their earliest days as a DIY indie troubadour, Kempner has steadily grown their reputation for putting into words what audiences feel but struggle to say. From their debut 2015 album Dry Food to A Place I’ll Always Go (2017), Black Friday (2019), a collaborative album under the moniker Bachelor with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte (2021’s Doomin’ Sun), and Eye On The Bat (2023), Kempner has assembled a stunning catalog built around candidly writing through life’s coming-of-age moments. You Sing Like You’re Joking takes this to profound new depths and is Kempner’s most impactful album to date.
Despite at times heavy subject matter, You Sing Like You’re Joking does not feel burdensome. In fact, quite the opposite: Kempner’s fifth album is a taut and jangly listening experience. Opener “Incisions” sets the stage with a lyrical call to the album’s title and melodically sounds as if ‘90s radio rockers Semisonic were in a collaboration with indie torchbearers Rilo Kiley. The murmuring “Natural Disasters” is a stripped-down meditation on a grown-apart friendship amid climate catastrophes. “My basement is flooding, and your house is burning, and we're not talking,” Kempner says. “I was like, ‘Damn, the future is pretty doomy right now. Why can't we just get over it and get through this together?’” The crisply strummed rocker “Target” also addresses a lost friendship but comes from a place of shock and disbelief as Kempner sings, “I had seen how cruel to others you could be/ But I never thought you’d pull that gun on me.”
Even as Kempner tackles hard-to-swallow loss on standout tracks “Target” and “Natural Disasters,” they still find within themselves the capacity to celebrate a romantic connection on the lovingly arranged “Color,” which started as a love poem Kempner wrote for their now-partner. “I just wanted to tell her I was thinking of her. ‘Color’ is an all-around love song about the feeling of being a pioneer when you're in love, where you feel like the lucky person who's discovered this new landscape.” The guitar-pop “Hourglass” marks another optimistic moment on You Sing Like You’re Joking, where Kempner expresses a sincere wish for reconnection. “It's just like, ‘I will be here. I'll always be here if you want to come back and try this again,’” Kempner says. “That's my ‘I Will Always Love You.’”
In the end, Kempner will always return to their musical community. Across the last two years in NYC, Kempner has formed bonds with fellow area musicians Cassandra Jenkins, Adrianne Lenker, Samia, and Annie DiRusso, most of whom appeared at Kempner’s completely sold out ‘You’re Joking!’ residency, which raised funds for the Immigrant Defense Project. “In music, the relationships are so different,” Kempner observes. “Because we all have this major thing we connect on, and that is an amazing starting point of friendship.” They add, “I was so lucky to be raised in DIY. I feel like I've finally settled into something that feels stronger and fully formed.”
