ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE TRACK WILL BENEFIT ACLU AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD
LISTEN TO AND SHARE “PEOPLE” HERE
STREAM OR PURCHASE “PEOPLE” HERE
CULT FOLLOWING OUT NOW VIA DINE ALONE RECORDS
"This is an artist in flux, in constant motion, searching for answers and finding many in her own music. There is wit as well as whimsy and wonder on Cult Following, a quirky, affecting, richly detailed album that deserves more than its title." - The Guardian
"Bigger, bolder and wholly encompassing in its creation...Cult Following is a brand
new horizon." - DIY
"Cult Following is beautifully orchestrated, and one of the rare records where the lavish arrangements feel fully in service of the songs, rather than like stage decoration." - Pitchfork
PHOTO CREDIT : CHRISTOPHER WAHL
With the current political climate being what it is, the time is right for Little Scream (aka Laurel Sprengelmeyer) to share a B-Side from her latest album, Cult Following. Though written several years ago, the sentiments in “People” still hold true for today. The song premiered today courtesy of Stereogum, who called the track “a battle cry.”
“When I sang the simple, earnest chorus ‘Come on, people! What's wrong with us, people?!’ I wasn't self editing, just letting myself have a moment of pure unguarded frustration with the apathy, privilege, and cynicism of my generation,” says Sprengelmeyer. “Like many of us, I was wondering where the protest movement was in the face of the longest war in US history. Black Lives Matter hadn't yet come to the fore, and Occupy Wall Street hadn't yet found a voice that could reach into mainstream media. At that time I was listening to a lot of 70s era Gil Scott Heron, Marvin Gaye, and John Lennon, and I was wondering what was so different about their time and ours, why lyrics like 'give peace a chance' found an audience then, but seemingly couldn't now.”
“People” didn’t make the cut of Cult Following simply because the timing wasn’t right and it didn’t fit anywhere on the record. “That all changed for me last week,” says Sprengelmeyer. “When simplistic rhetoric and misleading sloganeering helped award a sociopathic demagogue the highest office in my home country, I heard a collective sigh of exasperation, and it resembled something like 'Come on, People!!!' What more could we say?”
The is available to stream or purchase everywhere with all proceeds benefitting ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
LISTEN TO AND SHARE “PEOPLE” HERE
STREAM OR PURCHASE “PEOPLE” HERE
Out now via Dine Alone Records, Cult Following sees Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sufjan Stevens, Sharon Van Etten, Aaron and Bryce Dessner from the National, Owen Pallett, and Kyp Malone all make guest appearances on the album, but the world they inhabit is entirely Little Scream’s. Her voice acts as a tour guide through lush sonic landscapes carefully constructed with her creative partner, Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, and while the duo - alongside their heady cast of collaborators - dance across myriad moods and styles, what runs through Cult Following to its core is a sense of giddy creation and joyous experimentation in the face of an increasingly frightening world.
Sprengelmeyer says she began conceiving of Cult Following while visiting a friend in a small intentional community in northern Brazil that was on the verge of becoming a cult. “People were running around reading auras, interpreting each other’s dreams, and ‘living on light’ instead of eating — which was as compelling as it was absurd. I became very aware of the entropy of belief. You could feel the magnetism of ideas take shape and pull people into their center like a black hole… a thing so filled with light that its own gravity means that none of it can escape.” That experience laid the groundwork for Cult Following, a lush, expansive, retro-leaning gem.