Haley Dahl is a fascinating artist. She used to perform live with blue glittery slime dripping from her mouth, and spends time in caves recording music—in fact, she recorded her forthcoming album Madison with 21 bandmates in West Virginia’s Los World Caverns. Today, she’s released that record’s lead single “Party Anthem” with the news that her pal and former bandmate Phoebe Bridgers has added Dahl’s project Sloppy Jane to the roster at Saddest Factory Records.
“Party Anthem” is some whimsically morbid art-rock. Continuously surreal (“Imprisoned in a wedding pigeon body with a tin can face”) and poetic (“Were you better as a phantom, symphony, or a party anthem?”) Dahl’s music is like nothing you’ve ever witnessed. There’s lush symphonic swirls and childlike background harmonies. And it all takes place in a magnificent cave where couples hold each other tight as Dahl bounces around them.
“When I started talking about recording in caves, she was one of the few people to really get it immediately and thought it was the coolest thing,” Dahl says of Bridgers in regard to her Saddest Factory signing. “To work with someone who has so much personal context and enthusiasm was kind of a no-brainer. The label name ‘Saddest Factory Records’ came from a joke I made on Twitter, and I kind of think that’s representative of what my ideal professional trajectory looks like—me and my same friends who understand each other making the same jokes over and over again while our platforms expand.”
Bridgers added, “I have never seen an audience more captivated than at a Sloppy Jane show. Whether it was a house show in Reseda where the opener was a trash fire, or a 2,000 seat theatre in New York. They have been my favorite band since I was 16. I am never surprised, and always impressed. I’m glad to live in a world where Haley Dahl wanting to go to a cave to make a record just makes sense. This is already a classic album.”
Watch the video for “Party Anthem” below, and pre-order Madison here.
