Since acting in Get Out, Twin Peaks: The Return, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Texas-born multi-instrumentalist Caleb Landry Jones has begun a prolific music career, capped off by three records released in as many years. After his 2020 debut The Mother Stone established Jones as a formidable player in contemporary psych-rock, his follow-up, Gadzooks Vol. 1, put his enrapturing, goofy persona in the spotlight. His songs, which are playful and surreal, are a wide diversion from the serious, sometimes menacing portrayals he leaves on-screen.
The first single off Gadzooks Vol. 2, “Touchdown Yolk,” conjures Midnite Vultures–era Beck and the funk-laden, grooved-out tones and textures of mid-1970s dancefloor contemporary. Jones’ vocals are soulful yet far-out as he plays with the binaries of psychedelia and tinkers with genre euphoria. The accompanying video was co-created by Jones, Patrick Jones, Katya and Natalia Zvereva, Lera Moiseeva, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, Jacqueline Castel, and Mitch Horowitz, and features collages of handheld camcorder footage shot around New York City.
“I’m aware of only half the picture. It comes down upon me like a heavy rain,” Jones shared in a characteristically cryptic statement. “The psycho Deli is out of mustard and all the Porn Stars won’t leave their homes. I’m out only to get myself, but don’t get in the way. The bugs which throw themselves at windows rarely get their say.”
Watch the video for “Touchdown Yolk” below, and pre-order Gadzooks Vol. 2 here.
