Teen Suicide

Teen Suicide announce new album 'Nude descending staircase headless' via Run For Cover Records & share lead single and video 'Idiot'.

Teen Suicide have returned with the announcement of their new album, Nude descending staircase headless, due out April 17th from Run For Cover Records. 

Recorded/produced by Mike Sapone (Taking Back Sunday, Oso Oso, Cymbals Eat Guitars), Nude descending staircase headless is Teen Suicide's first ever proper studio recording and marks the start of a new chapter for one of the most unique and impactful bands in modern indie rock. The leap in fidelity alchemizes all of the personality, nuances, and raw edges that make Teen Suicide special into an immediately gratifying release that’s faithful to their earlier music while also moving boldly forward.

To celebrate the announcement, Teen Suicide have shared the first single from Nude descending staircase headless, the fuzzed-out stomper 'Idiot.' The track roars to life with a tremendous riff and the band sounding heavier and more confident than ever before, then it melts into shimmering atmosphere and harmonies from Teen Suicide's creative core, Sam and Kitty Ray. It's a stunning introduction to the ambitious and dynamic sound of Nude descending staircase headless. 

Over the years Teen Suicide has gone through many sonic evolutions, and the influence of Sam and Kitty Ray's entire musical constellation (including TS alter-ego American Pleasure Club, Starry Cat, The Pom-Poms, Kitty, Ricky Eat Acid, and many more) can be felt in all corners of underground and even mainstream contemporary music. But Nude descending staircase headless is new territory even for these exceptionally pioneering artists. Recent years have found both Ray’s bouncing back from dire health struggles, allowing Teen Suicide to finally assemble a solid lineup and tour more regularly. With that hard-earned stability the duo began reconsidering their approach to Teen Suicide as a whole.  

The result is a massive new album that trades the band's usual lofi process for a widescreen sound combined with some of their most visceral songwriting to date.

“On the older records everything was self-recorded, home-recorded, on a laptop or on tape, and always with really limited resources,”

Sam says.

“I think we became known for that but it was also very limiting to be seen as a lo-fi band.” 

Nude descending staircase headless is aggressive, catchy, intimate, a truly sweeping rock album that's sure to please longtime fans and offers the perfect jumping on point for new listeners of Teen Suicide's dense catalog.

The record's lyrics are just as ambitious as the music, wrestling with nihilism, addiction, and what it even means to try and make lasting art as the world embraces the path of least resistance at every turn.

“I think to write this kind of music you sort of have to pull from torment. Our torment is more external. This is what we do, the only thing we know is making music, so the existential perils of these ever-changing machines and systems we’re trying to exist within is the stuff that’s driving us insane when we sit down to write a song.” 

Kitty explains. 

Teen Suicide have created one of the most unique, dense, and impactful catalogs in modern indie rock, yet their new album, Nude descending staircase headless, does something they’ve never done before: it lets you in. It’s Teen Suicide’s first proper studio recording–the rare album that uses a leap in fidelity to propel a group not only to their most accessible form, but to their truest form. Nude descending staircase headless alchemizes all of the personality, nuances, and raw edges that make Teen Suicide special into an immediately gratifying release that’s faithful to their earlier music while also moving boldly forward. It’s an album made by artists who have genuinely evolved as people and musicians, and are now pushing themselves to make the best work of their careers. 

Led by husband and wife Sam and Kitty Ray, Teen Suicide have experienced the strange success of many beloved cult bands where the influence of their pioneering blend of scrappy emotional punk, bombastic post-rock, and lofi charm has fully permeated the underground to such a degree that it’s even seeped into the mainstream. And not just Teen Suicide, but the entire constellation of musical projects between the two musicians–TS alter-ego American Pleasure Club, Starry Cat, The Pom-Poms, Kitty, Ricky Eat Acid, and more–can be heard throughout contemporary music, both as key figures in the enduring 2010s bedroom pop wave, and in farther reaches , like their music being sampled by rappers or their raw production techniques traveling the chain of influence to arrive in pop songs. Real crossover success sometimes eludes the innovators themselves, but if Nude descending staircase headless is any indication, Teen Suicide are determined to avoid that fate.

Teen Suicide have also announced a lengthy run of North American tour dates with support from Liquid Mike, University, Pure Hex, and more.

Photo by Maysa Askar