After revealing a few key details on Sunday about her upcoming album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski has today released its first single, “Bug Like an Angel,” and an accompanying video in which she’s part of a choir attempting to aid an older woman staggering outside of a bar.
Due Sept. 15 on Dead Oceans, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We was recorded at Bomb Shelter in Mitski’s adopted Nashville home base and Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles. Overseen by longtime producer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Hyland, it features an orchestra arranged and conducted by Drew Erickson and a 17-person choir drawn from singers in both cities, including Erin Rae and Caitlin Rose.
Sonically, its influences are said to encompass composers Ennio Morricone and Carter Burwell, the late genre-jumping artist Arthur Russell, Brazilian singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso, and vintage American country singer Faron Young.
“The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people,” says Mitski of the inspiration for what she calls her “most American album. I wish I could leave behind all the love I have, after I die, so that I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I’ve created onto other people.”
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is follow-up to 2022’s Laurel Hell, Mitski’s highest-charting album to date in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., where it debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. It also opened at the top of both the Alternative and Rock Albums tallies.
Here is the track list for The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We:
Bug Like an Angel
Buffalo Replaced
Heaven
I Donʼt Like My Mind
The Deal
When Memories Snow
My Love Mine All Mine 8. The Frost
Star
Iʼm Your Man
I Love Me After You
