After an interval of almost five years, Knifeplay—the TJ Strohmer-led Philadelphia outfit famed for a sound that is at once dreamy, somber, and theatrically intense—has unveiled their next chapter following the breakthrough sophomore record Animal Drowning, which landed in 2022. Since then, the band has toured sporadically, kept their ephemeral Christmas EP tradition alive with yearly updates, and issued the striking Live In Seattle, a six-track collection that gathers several unreleased epics begging for a studio treatment. Those songs are now being folded into a new Knifeplay LP.
Knifeplay’s third album is titled What Is Truth? — a possible nod to Pontius Pilate, perhaps? It’s slated for a January release on Double Double Whammy, and it clocks in at nearly 80 minutes. Knifeplay’s appeal is underscored by a line from the official bio describing it as “the kind of record you would have burned onto a CD-R back in the days when Low were still on Kranky, when Red House Painters were still working, when Ida were getting a major label to bankroll their masterpiece.”
The album is preceded today by the 10-minute lead single “Love Song”. Ben Turok directed the video, and he offered this reflection on the project:
This couple is a real 20-year-old pair I cast for the video and drove with from LA to New York. I had planned most of what we shot, but of course some things just happened, and that’s most of what I liked in the end. I wanted to make something epic in scope, that had all this beauty and emotion baked into its images.
Watch below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Toil”
02 “Little Candle”
03 “Agonizing Mountain”
04 “Flowers Must Die”
05 “Joy”
06 “Close Your Eyes”
07 “Toil (Reprise)”
08 “Lord, Where Are You?”
09 “Stars”
10 “Love Song”
11 “Take The Light”
12 “Please Let The Children Be Artists”
TOUR DATES:
10/10 – Harrisburg, PA @ Capital City Music Hall (w/ Hase & Full Body 2 DJ Set)
12/11 – Philadelphia, PA @ Mini Mart (w/ Rhododendron)
What Is Truth? is out 1/22 on Double Double Whammy. Pre-order it here.
