Sylvan Esso - Ow ∞ [Indie Exclusive]

Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn have never sounded like they were enjoying themselves less, and that turns out to be the whole point. Ow ∞ is the first Sylvan Esso album on Psychic Hotline, the label they built themselves, and they used the freedom to make something rawer and messier than anything else in their catalog — what the band calls a technicolor totem of personal destruction that also happens to be an invitation to dance.

Recorded at their Chapel Hill studio Betty's from 2022 onward, it is also their most crowded record. Six different drummers pass through, Glenn Kotche of Wilco among them, alongside BJ Burton and Jenn Wasner. Meath describes the method as subtraction rather than addition — taking out a third of a song so the listener has to do some of the work. "Concrete Glen" samples Sigur Rós and describes a night out that changes everything. "Hot Slob" is exactly as sweaty and defiant as it sounds.

Meath summarized the record's thesis better than any critic will: living hurts forever, and then it stops, but also it's a little silly. Twelve songs that manage to hold both ideas at once.

Indie exclusive pressing on Angel of Death purple vinyl, out September 11, 2026.