Wilco Announces New Album, ‘Cousin’

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld Wilco is gearing up to release its 13th studio album, “Cousin,” on Sept. 29. The album comes via dBpm Records and will be the first release under the label’s new distribution arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment.

The Jeff Tweedy-led alt-rock outfit made the announcement while unveiling the album’s lead single, “Evicted,” a melancholy acoustic track about getting your heart broken. “I’m evicted / From your heart / I deserve it,” Tweedy sings on the chorus. “I guess I was trying to write from the point of view of someone struggling to make an argument for themself in the face of overwhelming evidence that they deserve to be locked out of someoneʼs heart,” Tweedy said of the song. “Self-inflicted wounds still hurt and in my experience theyʼre almost impossible to fully recover from.” The 10-track “Cousin” is produced by Cate Le Bon, marking the first time Wilco has brought in a producer outside of the band’s tight circle of collaborators since 2007’s “Sky Blue Sky.” Wilco first met Le Bon at the band’s Solid Sound Festival in 2019, inspiring Tweedy to invite Le Bon to Wilco’s Chicago studio, The Loft, in 2022 to work on “Cousin.” “The amazing thing about Wilco is they can be anything,” Le Bon said. “They’re so mercurial, and thereʼs this thread of authenticity that flows through everything they do, whatever the genre, whatever the feel of the record.

There arenʼt many bands who are able to, this deep into a successful career, successfully change things up.” Explaining the album’s title, Tweedy said in a statement, “Iʼm cousin to the world.

I donʼt feel like Iʼm a blood relation, but maybe Iʼm a cousin by marriage.” Following the release of the album, Wilco will tour across Europe, the United Kingdom,.