SerpApi.Org
Sylvan Esso are back. The Durham, North Carolina duo of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn announced "Ow ∞," their first full-length in four years, arriving September 11 — and for the first time, they're putting it out themselves through their own label, Psychic Hotline.
The album lands with a lead single, "Concrete Glen," a hazy slice of electronic pop built around a night out gone surreal. The track's secret weapon: a sample of Sigur Rós' 1999 landmark "Svefn-g-englar," Jónsi Birgisson's wordless falsetto folded straight into the mix. It's a bold swing for a band that's always treated the space between organic warmth and machine precision as its home turf. Meath framed the record's philosophy bluntly: "Living hurts forever, and then it stops. But also it's a little silly." She's calling it a rallying cry.
"Ow ∞" — written over nearly four years and recorded at the pair's Betty's studio in Chapel Hill — marks a clean break from the machinery of the music industry as usual. The self-released route isn't a small footnote. It's the logical next move for a band that, in September 2025, pulled its entire catalog from Spotify. Meath and Sanborn objected to co-founder Daniel Ek's investment in Helsing, a German AI defense-tech firm, writing that they "simply can't continue to put our life's work in a store that, in addition to all its other glaring flaws, directly funds war machines." They released the single "WDID" everywhere but Spotify, joining Massive Attack, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Xiu Xiu in the growing exodus. Nearly a year later, the boycott holds, and "Ow ∞" will roll out on their own terms.
There's a tour to match. Sylvan Esso have mapped a North American run stretching from October 2026 into March 2027, with a slate of two-night stands in cities that have long treated them like hometown heroes — Asheville, Washington DC, Portland, and Denver among them. Marquee stops include Brooklyn Paramount, Chicago's Salt Shed, and the Wiltern in Los Angeles, plus a headlining turn at the Good Moon Festival in Durham, October 8-10. International dates, including a stop in Japan, round out a run that spans more than 30 cities.
For a group that made its name turning intimacy into something danceable, "Ow ∞" arrives as both a return and a statement of independence. "Concrete Glen" is available on major services other than Spotify.
