Sylvan Esso release first new album in four years ‘Ow ∞’ out today via Psychic Hotline
Ow ∞ album art by Eric Timothy Carlson
Today, Sylvan Esso release Ow ∞: their first new album in four years, and first to be released on their own record label, Psychic Hotline. Named one of the buzziest projects The New York Times is looking forward to this autumn, Ow ∞ is a trust fall into our dystopian present, past and future – arms wide open, embracing and absorbing the pain of cities under water or on fire, and piecing oneself back together as a tactile, scotch-taped collage of memories, ephemera, Y2K-era burned CDs and backseat makeouts. Produced by Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, and bringing together 12 of their most collaborative, improvisational and experimental songs to date, Ow ∞ marks the longest the band has ever spent writing a record, but arrives with an intense immediacy that is messy, hellish and free, metabolising a life of making music with people into making art that you just love.
Listen to Ow ∞ on vinyl, CD, cassette and digitally via Psychic Hotline – further illustrated through an immersive world of animated characters and iconography by artist Eric Timothy Carlson – and watch the new video for “Sledge,” written in the shadow of Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles fires, as it channels apocalyptic anxiety into a fierce affirmation of destruction, control and surrender.
Created, reimagined and revisited nearly every day since 2022, in the woods of their studio Betty's in Chapel Hill, NC, Ow ∞ is both a technicolour totem of personal destruction, and an ecstatic invitation to party. From highlights like “Hot Slob” to “Concrete Glen” and “On & On,” Most of the tracks on Ow ∞ are Meath's first vocal takes, while arrangements and ideas are excavated, painted over and held together by the largest community of musicians Sylvan Esso have ever worked with on an LP. Featuring six different drummers in total, as well as live guitar, bass, keys, vibraphone, woodwinds, Innato, organ, piano and electronics, Meath and Sanborn are joined by Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, Dijon), BJ Burton (Bon Iver, Charli XCX), Matt Douglas (the Mountain Goats), Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Jake Luppen (Hippo Campus, Samia), TJ Maiani (Weyes Blood, Neneh Cherry), James Mapley-Brittle (GRRL), Buddy Ross (Frank Ocean, Bon Iver), Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes) and Joe Westerlund (Megafaun) throughout the record, filling hard drives with 5-10 songs at a time, some sticking and some not.
But for an album that wrestles so much with the out-of-control nature of being alive, Ow ∞ meets Meath and Sanborn at a time where, finally, they have complete control over what Sylvan Esso can be: putting things out the way they want to, with the people they choose, in their own studio and through their own label.
Following a cross-country Road Trip and global series of Hi-Fi Listening Parties earlier this month, Sylvan Esso will bring the music of Ow ∞ to a full-band tour spanning more than two dozen shows across North America and beyond in 2026 and 2027, in addition to return of their biennial Good Moon festival that takes over four venues throughout their hometown of Durham, NC, from October 8th-10th. See below for upcoming dates, with tickets and more information at sylvanesso.com.
Sylvan Esso Tour Dates
Sep 12 - Abiquiu, NM - Blossoms & Bones
Sept 20 - Brighton, UK - Resident Music (In-Store Performance)
Sept 21 - London, UK - Rough Trade (In-Store Performance, Matinee)
Sept 21 - London, UK - Rough Trade (In-Store Performance) SOLD OUT
Sept 24 - London, UK - Secret Location (DJ Set)
Oct 1 - Atlanta, GA - The Eastern
Oct 2 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel LOW TICKETS
Oct 3 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel SOLD OUT
Oct 5 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club SOLD OUT
Oct 6 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club LOW TICKETS
Oct 8-10 - Durham, NC - Good Moon LOW TICKETS
Oct 12 - Philadelphia, PA - Franklin Music Hall
Oct 14 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Paramount LOW TICKETS
Oct 15 - New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall
Oct 16 - Portland, ME - State Theatre LOW TICKETS
Oct 17 - Boston, MA - Citizens House of Blues
Oct 19 - Toronto, ON - HISTORY
Oct 21 - Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater
Oct 22 - Chicago, IL - The Salt Shed Indoors
Oct 23 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue LOW TICKETS
Oct 24 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue LOW TICKETS
Oct 31-Nov 1 - Kakegawa, JP - Festival de Frue
Dec 5 - Memphis, TN - Raised by Sound Fest (DJ Set)
Feb 19 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre
Feb 20 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre
Feb 22 - Portland, OR - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom LOW TICKETS
Feb 23 - Portland, OR - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom
Feb 25 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
Feb 26 - Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
Feb 27 - Santa Ana, CA – Observatory
Mar 1 - Del Mar, CA - The Sound
Mar 2 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren
Mar 4 - Salt Lake City, UT - Rockwell at the Complex
Mar 5 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre LOW TICKETS
Mar 6 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
Mar 8 - Austin, TX - ACL Live at The Moody Theater
Mar 9 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues
Mar 11 - New Orleans, LA - Tipitina’s LOW TICKETS
Mar 12 - Birmingham, AL - Iron City
Mar 13 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl
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