Sign up for our mailing list Real artists creating records on their own terms
Close

Sign up for our mailing list

News

Katy Kirby Announces Anti- Debut Album ‘Blue Raspberry’ Out January 26
Tuesday, October 24th, 2023

Katy Kirby Announces Anti- Debut Album ‘Blue Raspberry’ Out January 26

New York-based songwriter Katy Kirby is announcing her second album ‘Blue Raspberry’ today, to be released on January 26, 2024. Her first for ANTI- Records, ‘Blue Raspberry’ dives headlong into the artifice of newfound intimacy: the glitter smeared across eyelid creases, the smiles switched on with an electric buzz, the synthetic rose scent all over someone who's made herself smell nice just for you. An exegesis of Kirby's first queer relationship, ‘Blue Raspberry’ traces the crescendo and collapse of new love, savoring each gleaming shard of rock candy and broken glass along the way.

With today’s announce she is sharing the song and video for “Table”. Directed by Lane Rodges, the clip features Katy in puritanical garb as she sizes up a table that represents the limitations she experienced being raised as a homeschooled evangelical Christian. 

Reflecting on “Table,” Kirby says the song is “a thematic outlier on this record, and more of a lighthearted leftover from my god-haunted past life–it’s the last on the album and sort of serves as an epilogue or outro for the rest of the songs. Most importantly it’s quite fun to sing.”

‘Blue Raspberry’ follows Kirby’s acclaimed 2021 debut album ‘Cool Dry Place’, which was named ‘Album of the Week’ by Stereogum and one of the most anticipated albums of 2021 by Vulture, Paste, Vice, Line of Best Fit and more. Post-release she took ‘Cool Dry Place’’s clear-eyed, intimate music on the road with Waxahatchee, Andy Shauf, Pinegrove, Fenne Lily and Julia Jacklin. While the songs on that record unfold amidst Kirby finding her voice, ‘Blue Raspberry’ is a polished and confident sophomore effort that deepens the question that bubbled throughout ‘Cool Dry Place’: how can people reach each other despite all the hazard zones where human connection caves in?

“This record is much more personal than I intended it to be. I was in a period of experimenting with how I write, and what came out was a song about a woman, about an imagined her—I didn’t think I was writing as or about myself, but these kinds of songs kept coming out, with fragments of overlapping lyrics linking them together like beads on a string. They seemed to inhabit the same world.”

Originally from Spicewood, Texas, Kirby was living in Nashville when she started writing ‘Blue Raspberry’'s title track, the first of the album's songs to take shape. "'Blue Raspberry' is the oldest song on the record. I began to write it a month or so before I realized, I think I’m queer," she says. "There’s a tradition of yearning in country love songs. I like the male yearning songs better, usually. I started writing 'Blue Raspberry,' and I was thinking about, if I was in love with a woman, what would I love about her? Especially if she was someone that I couldn’t touch, but that I was pining for.”

To underscore ‘Blue Raspberry’'s lyrical themes, Kirby worked with her band to develop a newly lush sonic palette replete with orchestral gestures arranged by her friend Rowen Merrill. "I felt like I was intending to write love songs for the first time. Once I realized they were queer love songs and celebrating artificiality, I wanted them to sound like they were bidding for a spot in the wedding reception canon," she says. "It was more fun to just go for it than to try to restrain ourselves. Especially if we were just accepting the fact that we were trying to make objectively beautiful music, whatever that means."

Just after the album’s January release next year Kirby will embark on a nationwide tour that begins in Washington DC on February 3 and wraps around the country, ending back on the East coast at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom on March 8. All upcoming dates are listed below.

 

TOUR DATES

Feb 3 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd#
Feb 4 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle - Back Room#
Feb 5 – Asheville, NC @ Eulogy#
Feb 7 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room at Third Man Records#
Feb 8 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Purgatory#
Feb 9 – Jackson, MS @ Hal & Mal's#
Feb 11 – Dallas, TX @ Sons of Hermann Hall#
Feb 13 – Austin, TX @ The Ballroom#
Feb 15 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress#
Feb 16 - Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room#
Feb 17 - West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy Theatre#
Feb 18 - San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop#
Feb 19 – Sacramento, CA @ Goldfield Trading Post#
Feb 21 - Portland OR @ Polaris Hall#
Feb 22 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza#
Feb 24 – Boise, ID @ Shrine Basement#
Feb 25 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court#
Feb 27 – Denver, CO @ Hi Dive#
Feb 29 – Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge#
Mar 1 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry#
Mar 2 – Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon#
Mar 3 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall#
Mar 5 – Detroit, MI @ The Sanctuary#
Mar 6 – Pittsburgh, PA @ The Warhol Entrance Space#
Mar 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's#
Mar 8 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

# - with Allegra Krieger

Browse by Artist

2101All Artists 100Tom Waits 74Mavis Staples 59Neko Case 51Lost In The Trees 50Sean Rowe 48Dr. Dog 45The Milk Carton Kids
41Jolie Holland 40Bettye LaVette 37Man Man 36Son Little 35Tinariwen 33DeVotchKa 33Tim Fite 31Islands 31Grinderman 29Glen Hansard 28Saintseneca 27Galactic 27Wilco 27Delicate Steve 26Andy Shauf 25The Drums 24Michael Franti and Spe... 24Xenia Rubinos 22William Elliott Whitmo... 22Doe Paoro 22Bob Mould 21The Frames 21Nick Cave & The Bad Se... 20Joe Henry 20Christopher Paul Stell... 19Yves Jarvis 19Cass McCombs 19Booker T. Jones 19Sage Francis 18Gary V 18Deafheaven 18Calexico 17Yann Tiersen 17John K. Samson 16Jason Lytle 16The Antlers 16Danny Elfman 16Ramblin Jack Elliott 14Daniel Lanois 14Jeremy Ivey 14Madi Diaz 13The Dream Syndicate 13Half Waif 13Billy Bragg 12Leyla McCalla 12Combo Chimbita 12Girlpool 12Xavier Rudd 12Peter Silberman 11Mose Allison 11Lyrics Born 11Rain Machine 11Ryan Pollie 11Roky Erickson 11Purr 11The Weakerthans 11Glitterer 11Jade Jackson 10Alfa Mist 10Japandroids 10The Swell Season 10Darrin Bradbury 10Moor Mother 10High Pulp 10Christian Lee Hutson 10So Much Light 10The Melodic 9Hey, King! 9Curtis Harding 9Marianne Faithfull 9Wynonna 9Josiah Johnson 9M. Ward 9Cameron Avery 9N.A.S.A. 9Lido Pimienta 8Katy Kirby 8Greg Graffin 8Kate Davis 8Slow Pulp 8The Coup 8Solillaquists of Sound 8Cadence Weapon 7Kelly Hogan 7Ben Harper 7Title Fight 7Dead Man's Bones 7Ben Harper and Charlie... 7Alec Ounsworth 7Richard Reed Parry 7Beth Orton 7Eddie Izzard 7Elliott Smith 6Broken Twin 6Rafiq Bhatia 6Busdriver 6Deradoorian 6A Girl Called Eddy 6MJ Lenderman 6Kate Bush 6Bonny Doon 6Os Mutantes 5Foxwarren 5Kristine Leschper 5One Day As A Lion 5Ezra Furman 5The Tallest Man On Ear... 5Scott McMicken and THE... 5Beat Connection 5James Brandon Lewis 5Jasmyn 5Keaton Henson 5Art Moore 5The Field 4Ersi Arvizu 4The Good Ones 4Sparklehorse 4Pops Staples 4Waxahatchee 4Marketa Irglova 4sunking 4Jackson+Sellers 3Walter Wolfman Washing... 3Plains 3Marc Ribot 3Mothers 3Danny Cohen 3Sam Akpro 3Petra Haden 3Sierra Leones Refugee... 3Mavis Staples & Levon... 2Fleet Foxes 2Various Artists: RANGO 2ANTI- Records 2Jeff Tweedy 1Various Artists: ROGUE... 1Rogue's Gallery 1Antibalas 1Simian Mobile Disco 1Porter Wagoner 1Blackalicious 1Lightman Jarvis Ecstat... 1Joe Strummer And The M... 1Solomon Burke 1Youth Group 1Merle Haggard 1case/lang/veirs 1The Locust 1Taylor Vick 1Tricky 1Kronos Quartet with Br...
See Full List+