Lowertown
- bizzarre
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
New York duo Lowertown share new single "Worst Friend" taken from the album "Ugly Duckling Union" out 22nd May via Summer Shade.
Lowertown, the New York duo comprised of Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg, share new single “Worst Friend.” The track is the latest release from their recently announced new album Ugly Duckling Union, due out May 22nd via Summer Shade. The country-tinged “Worst Friend” sees Osby and Weinberg trade verses before coming together for its euphoric chorus.
“This song was written with our folk inspirations at heart, June and Johnny Cash, Dylan and Baez, trading verses about reaching the point where a lack of self awareness of one’s shortcomings and accountability for one’s mistakes can lead to pushing everyone away and your inevitable downfall,”
they share.
“Self sabotage, inner darkness and aimlessness are common themes on Ugly Duckling Union.”
The songwriting partnership of Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg, the last few years saw the prolific pair teetering on the brink. From constant touring and a separation from their label to creative frustrations and an unhealthy attachment to one another, their artistic partnership and, more importantly, their friendship were on shaky ground—especially since these experiences were coloured by the disorienting intensity of their late teens and early 20s. It became clear that the two had to revisit their roots.
Those roots trace back to Atlanta, Georgia: in the forests, the soon-to-be abandoned venues, the makeshift punk communities, to Weinberg’s family basement, but those roots also formed somewhere else entirely: the internet. The band grew up on Tumblr fanpages, Reddit forums, digital spaces that had not yet been corporatised. Places whose fandoms eventually leapt from the virtual to the physical, bringing people together to meet at concerts, coffee shops, and conventions to discuss their obsessions and connect over shared interests.
During the pandemic, they watched these places change, become commodified, and disappear; people no longer had these physical spaces to be solely amongst friends with shared interests where communities and fandoms could strengthen. Out of this vacuum, the Ugly Duckling Union was born.
On previous single “Big Thumb,” Lowertown showcase how far they’ve come since their early days in Atlanta. In an unkempt folk-jazz murmur, Weinberg slurs his words with palpable heart, while Osby’s lush vocal melodies and harmonica encircle to haunting effect. The track arrives with a surreal video directed by Jack Haven (I Saw The TV Glow).
Lead single “I Like You A Lot” is a rare love song from the pair, detailing the physical sensations of infatuation over a spry drumbeat and lo-fi, twangy guitars.
Inspired by the conceptual creativity of bands like Gorillaz and the emphasis on the communal concert experience of Fugazi, Lowertown’s new album, fittingly titled Ugly Duckling Union, is the conceptual world of Dale the duckling protagonist and his companions as they attempt to band together to defeat LBH, a tyrannical media corporation set on separating and isolating in their pursuit of control.
Through the band’s online connection with fans, their Discord server with channels for their community to share their own art and talk to the band, and their Instagram and Youtube pages, where they have built a cult following, they have already begun to bridge the gap between the digital and physical. Lowertown shows are often giddily attended by those who have met through their web of online fandom.
Ugly Duckling Union, accompanied by a conceptual story, a playable Minecraft world, a handbook, plush dolls, and drawn comics by Doctor Nowhere (Silas Orion), is creating the space to be obsessed together again.
Ugly Duckling Union was fully written, recorded, produced, and mixed by Osby and Weinberg, and that insular, hands-on ethic is something they cherish—and has never waned. Although Lowertown are the sole caretakers of their art, their new album title is a celebration of the meaningful community they’ve built.
“Our home has been the people who make us feel understood, and the music that makes us feel understood,”
Osby explains.
“I feel like Avsha and I have just been two misfits doing stuff together, and I feel like this music is for people like us—it’s for the misfit toys.”
There’s a lot of freedom in being an outsider, and that’s ultimately what Ugly Duckling Union is about—finding and freeing yourself through community. And what could be more freeing, self-confronting, and funny than making a beautiful record with your ride-or-die, misfit-toy best friend?
Lowertown announced an extensive headline tour of North America that kicks off in late April and runs through the end of June, culminating in a hometown show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are available via lowertown.band.
Additionally, the band is hosting fan activations around each single drop, which they announce through their Laylo and Discord accounts directly to their fans.
Photo by Reno Silver
Tour dates
April 28th - Philadelphia, PA @ The Loft
April 29th - Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
May 1st - Burlington, VT @ Radio Bean
May 2nd - Montreal @ Ministere
May 4th - Ottawa, CAN @ 27 Club
May 5th - Toronto, CAN @ Hard Luck Room
May 7th - Cleveland, OH @ Mahall's
May 8th - Indianapolis, IN @ HiFi
May 9th - Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
May 10th - Whitefish Bay, WI @ The Argo
May 12th - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
May 13th - Des Moines, IA @ xBK
May 14th - Lawrence, KS @ The White Schoolhouse
May 16th - Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
May 18th - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
May 19th - Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club
May 22nd - Seattle, WA @ Baba Yaga
May 23rd - Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
May 26th - San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
May 29th - Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
May 30th - Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
May 31st - San Diego, CA @ Quartyard
June 8th - Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
June 11th - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
June 12th - Austin, TX @ 29th St Ballroom
June 13th - Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
June 15th - Nashville, TN @ The End
June 17th - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade (HELL)
June 19th - Jacksonville, FL @ Hard Love
June 20th - Orlando, FL @ Conduit
June 22nd - Miami, FL @ Lincoln’s Beard
June 23rd - Tampa, FL @ The Orpheum
June 25th - Durham, NC @ The Pinhook
June 26th - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
June 27th - New York City, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
