Bad Stuff, the Dallas-based quintet featuring members of True Widow (Dan Phillips and Nicole Estill) with art rock locals Jackie Dunn Smith, Gabriel Spatz, and Laura Hartman Pearl, announce their self-titled debut album, due June 5 via Relapse Records.
Bad Stuff move with mood and momentum: meditative, repetitive, and slow-burning, with dreamlike melodies drifting through something denser and more dangerous, all delivered with a cool, detached intensity.
On “Summer Girls” a hypnotic, circular drum pattern anchors the track as it unfolds at a deliberate pace, building tension before Phillips’ unmistakable guitar cuts through, with a low, droning undercurrent humming beneath it all.
Bad Stuff began as two bands: Latent Print, an instrumental project featuring Phillips and Estill, which would showcase his rockabilly chops and Estill behind the drum kit, and Concord Kill, Dunn Smith’s synth and drum machine driven project. “So these songs from our two bands are sitting there, one set that I wrote for Latent Print and another set that Jackie wrote on a four track recorder, and one day we decided that maybe we’d try to put it all together and see if it worked,” recalls Phillips. “And it did. When we were doing the sequence for the record, that “switching the dial“ thing became apparent– there’s not just one sound or one style. It really makes the pacing of the record work and sort of showcases each of the songs.”
Bad Stuff is available now for pre-order/pre-saves here on vinyl, CD, and digitally.
