TV on the Radio fans have had reason to be cautiously optimistic this year. After an understandable hiatus following the tragic passing of bassist Gerard Smith, the Brooklyn-based art-rock animals have been stirring once again. Producer Dave Sitek fired up his new label Federal Prism with a release from Kelis and much more promised. Singer Tunde Adebimpe revealed that the band has more-or-less fired Interscope. They played New York’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival and curated an entire weekend of All Tomorrow’s Parties. And while at that overseas event, TVOTR played a brand new song called “Mercy.”
Thanks to Huffington Post, we can now hear the studio version of the upbeat New Wave-inflected track, which finds Adebimpe taking the lead over grinding guitars and blaring synths. “I see tons of people looking lost and lethal and I know we’re all the same,” he sings with cool confidence over the rightly punked and nicely popped song. In speaking to HuffPo, singer/guitarist Kyp Malone said they “couldn’t be more excited to be getting back into it, all together.” He also revealed that they recorded a second song called “Million Miles,” adding that both “came to fruition with such ease that it felt like an invitation to get back to this good work.”
Though the full artwork for “Mercy” makes it clear that the song will see a 7-inch release, no date or details have been shared. Yesterday (July 29) however, Sitek announced that Federal Prism will be sharing a spate of new songs via SoundCloud on a regular basis in the coming weeks, as well as posting the stems to each song so fans and artists alike can try their hand at the remix game, an art form that Sitek flexes on quite frequently (via Until the Ribbon Breaks, JJ DOOM, and “Shoop Lion”). Visit HuffPo to hear “Mercy” in its entirety song, or listen to a snippet below via Instagram:
