Young Prisms Announce New Album 'Drifter', Share 'Honeydew'
Today, San Francisco band Young Prisms return with the announcement of their first full-length album in nearly 10 years, Drifter, due March 25th via Fire Talk. Produced by Shaun Durkan [Weekend, Soft Kill], the twelve-track album finds steadiness in the embrace of uncertainty, where Young Prisms explore the tension and release that comes with bringing your head down from the clouds to make sense of the tangible entanglements that make up everyday existence.
Coupled with the album announcement, Young Prisms share lead single and video for "Honeydew." The upbeat track rings in a new sonic era for the band following their sabbatical. Directed by band member Giovanni Betteo and starring vocalist Stefanie Hodapp, the "Honeydew" video was shot in one take with no cuts and was inspired by the filmmakers Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard.
Speaking on the inspiration for the single, vocalist Stefanie Hodapp says, "Growing up, my grandmother would tell me that honeydew was her favorite melon. I was never fully convinced. I usually preferred cantaloupe and quite frankly thought she was full of shit because everyone knows cantaloupe tastes better. Clearly this was more of a pitch to her unwilling granddaughter. 'Honeydew' (the song) is about looking back on life and wishing for more, as if it wasn’t right or good enough. Hoping for a time machine to change history. Somehow that stubborn grandmother analogy makes sense now. A honeydew life won't ever be a cantaloupe life, but it's okay and can be just as satisfying if you accept it for what it is."
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Drifter, the first album in a decade from San Francisco shoegazers Young Prisms is a record that finds steadiness in the embrace of uncertainty. Forming in 2009, with release of a self-titled EP on esteemed indie tastemaker Mexican Summer followed by two full lengths (2011’s Friends For Now and 2012’s In Between) on Kanine Records. Coming of age during a time where the band’s blend of introspective shoegaze and gauze-laden guitar earned them tours with bands like the Radio Dept, Dum Dum Girls, A Place to Bury Strangers and Moon Duo, Young Prisms never quite reached the same heights of commercial success afforded to some of their peers. At its core, Drifter is about the human experience and finding a balance between the thrills and intensity of wanting - another person, a better life - and the quiet rewards of finding peace in domesticity, whatever shape that may take. As the band explains, the central chorus of the lead single “I believe in you, honeydew” changes meaning as you realize that you can’t fix things, but you can figure out how to believe in yourself.” In many ways, Drifter feels like a homecoming - throughout the flux of growing older and not necessarily growing up in the ways you expected, the band has found their footing with the time afforded when you finally take the pressure off. It’s a record that could have only been made with real passage of time, through the world-weary vantage point of a group of friends that can’t stop coming back to each other. "Drifter gave my inner demons permission to surface and form into something less despondent. I tend to draw inspiration from my more crippling moments, but as we’ve matured I've found happiness in practicality and maybe there’s a source in that, too." Recorded from June 2020 through February 2021 and produced by Shaun Durkan (Weekend, Soft Kill), Drifter, mastered by Heba Kadry (Slowdive, Bjork, Japanese Breakfast).
1st Pressing
400 Copies on Violet Haze Vinyl
400 Copies on Black Vinyl
*Additional 400 Units on Bright Blue Indie Exclusive Vinyl Available only at Independent Record Stores