Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree Share New Track And Video; New Album Out February 21

LEE RANALDO & RAÜL REFREE SHARE NEW TRACK AND VIDEO “LIGHT YEARS OUT” NEW ALBUM NAMES OF NORTH END WOMEN OUT FEBRUARY 21 EUROPEAN TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

Credit: Ari Marcopoulos

LEE RANALDO & RAÜL REFREE have launched a new track and video from their forthcoming album, Names of North End Women, out February 21 on vinyl, CD and digital platforms via Mute. The new track, “Light Years Out,” follows the release of the album’s title track and shows the experimental side of Ranaldo and Refree’s new album by incorporating both spoken word and singing, old cassette tapes and state-of-the-art digital machines. The accompanying video, shot in São Paulo and New York City by Anna Bogaciovas and Fred Riedel, is described by Ranaldo as “an adventure into the world of ancient analog video processing!” Watch now via Rolling Stone. Pre-order Names of North End Women here. Names of North End Women’s release will be followed by a European tour that includes a performance at London’s Milton Court Concert Hall on April 7 as part of the Barbican’s music program. Full details below. MORE ABOUT NAMES OF NORTH END WOMEN Ranaldo and Refree worked together on Ranaldo’s last solo album, Electric Trim (Mute, 2017). Soon after, the pair returned to the studio to record the follow up and realized that Names of North End Women would become what Ranaldo describes as “the beginning of a new partnership, a new configuration.” For Ranaldo – a cofounder of Sonic Youth and one of the greatest guitarists of his generation as ranked by both Rolling Stone and Spin – and Refree, an artist reinventing traditional flamenco guitar (his album with Rosalía continues to grow internationally), this is an album that features tracks with little or no guitar. Instead, the duo composed using marimba and vibraphone, samplers, a vintage 2-inch Studer tape recorder and a modified cassette machine Ranaldo had previously used in performances 25 years earlier. “We were mixing in all these strange analog sounds from old cassette tapes, dealing with tape hiss; using very new technology and very old technology and mixing them together,” remembers Ranaldo. Elements from a mysterious old tape Ranaldo found spooled on the Studer when he’d bought it years earlier – drum sounds, slamming doors, people talking – formed the backbone of tracks. The music, it seemed, could come from literally anywhere. “This record began as playing with samplers and cassette players,” says Refree, “as experimental music, musique concrete, poly-rhythms.” As the process wore on, however, their abstractions materialized into songs, their elemental rhythms, ambient hums and sampler damage revealing hidden melodies and patterns upon deep listening. Ranaldo and Refree traded melodic ideas and added vocals to the tracks, singing in addition to the spoken word pieces they’d always planned these pieces to feature. The words came in a process akin to the music, a collagist philosophy prevailing, as Ranaldo recomposed poems from his archives, wrote new pieces and incorporated lines sent in by Jonathan Lethem, who’d helped pen the songs of Electric Trim. The result is an album alive with the electric crackle of experimentalism, yet satisfying as a collection of songs. Artwork by Jessi Reaves & Brad Kronz Images courtesy of Bridget Donahue Gallery Names of North End Women Tracklisting 1. Alice, Etc. 2. Words out of the Haze 3. New Brain Trajectory 4. Humps (Espiru Mix) 5. Names of North End Women 6. Light Years Out 7. The Art of Losing (feat. Hayley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux) 8. At The Forks Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree Live April 5 – Bruges, Belgium – Chamber Music Room - Concertgebouw Brugge April 6 – Utrecht, Netherlands – De Heiling April 7 – London, England – Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican April 9 – Paris, France – LE CENTQUATRE April 10 – Clermont-Ferrand, France – Cooperative De Mai April 11 – Nantes, France – Stereolux April 17 – Girona, Spain – Festival Strenes – Teatro Le Mercé April 18 – Avellino, Italy – Cinema Teatro Partenio April 19 – Rome, Italy – Monk Club April 21 – Ljubljana, Slovenia – Cankarjev Dom April 22 – Pordeone, Italy – Capitol April 23 – Civitanova Alta, Italy – Theater April 25 – Lausanne, Switzerland – Theatre de Vidy April 26 – Bern, Switzerland – Dachstock April 27 – Nuremberg, Germany – Z-bau April 28 – Berlin, Germany – Roter Salon - Volksbühne April 29 – Prague, Czech Republic – Palác Akropolis April 30 – Krems, Austria – Donau Festival   Pre-order Names of North End Women Watch the video for “Names of North End Women” LEE RANALDO: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC RAÜL REFREE: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC MUTE: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM