Mal Blum | courtesy of the artist
Mal Blum doesn’t need a reason to be Mal Blum on “I Don’t Want To,” from new album Pity Boy
A few weeks back, Mal Blum released “Things Still Left To Say,” their first new song three years. Now, they’ve followed the new tune with the announcement that their new LP, Pity Boy, will be released July 12 on Don Giovanni Records. Mal Blum also shared the second single from the forthcoming record, the upbeat and assertive “I Don’t Want To,” that proves you don’t need a reason to be yourself.
Pity Boy will be Blum’s first record since 2015, and their first with their backing band, The Blums — which includes Philadelphians Audrey Zee Whitesides of Speedy Ortiz on guitar, Barrett Lindgren on bass, and Ricardo Lagomasino on drums. According to a press release, it’s “an album that examines the patterns that recur over the course of our lives and what happens when we try (and often fail) to break them,” and it comes to life through Blum’s vivid storytelling.
“Honestly, I think it was just, like, the next chapter of my therapy session,” Mal Blum writes. “The last record was like, ‘Oh, okay, for the first time I’ve admitted to myself that I am struggling.’ But after that, you have to take all that self-examination to the next step, which is: ‘Why do I do the things I do? What are these cycles in my life that are or are not helping me?’ That’s the place that I was in when I wrote almost all of these songs.”
Mal Blum’s summer tour stops by PhilaMOCA on July 21. Find tickets and more information on the XPN Concert Calendar.
Tour Dates
7.19 – New York, NY @ Rough Trade
7.20 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong
7.21 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
7.22 Boston, MA @ Great Scott
7.23 – New Haven, CT @ State House
7.24 – Portland, ME @ The Apohadion Theater