New Paltz, New York duo Diet Cig are revisiting their acclaimed 2020 album Do You Wonder About Me? with the I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To EP, featuring new takes on three songs from their second LP. Ahead of the EP’s Oct. 1 release via Frenchkiss Records, “Priority Mail (Alt Version)” is out now. “Who Are You” and “Broken Body” are the other two album tracks reimagined on the record.
Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman say of their EP and its lead single in a statement:
This spring we chose to go back in the studio and rerecord a few tracks from our album, as a practice in intuitive music making and as a nod to this album that has really gotten us through the past year and a half. We went in with no rules, just with the idea that we wanted to play with these songs and explore new sounds for the tracks. We had a lot of fun giving “Priority Mail” a more light hearted feel, in contrast to the moodiness of the original. We both played all the parts in collaboration with Chris Daly at Salvation Recording Co. in New Paltz. It felt really healing to dive into this process around the 1 year mark of the album release!!
The original album version of “Priority Mail” was a stark, minute-long interlude featuring little more than piano and Luciano’s voice, including the lyric that lends Diet Cig’s new EP its title: “Don’t like driving like I used to / Almost died too many times.” The duo’s alternate take on the track maintains its intimacy, but doubles its length and brings an upbeat energy to the previously somber song, with lo-fi tape hiss, acoustic guitar strums and analog synths bolstering Luciano’s yearning vocals.
Do You Wonder About Me? was the follow-up to Diet Cig’s 2017 full-length debut Swear I’m Good At This. The duo recently contributed a rendition of “The Unforgiven” to the all-star Metallica covers album The Metallica Blacklist.
Check out “Priority Mail (Alt Version),” Diet Cig’s 2017 Paste session and the details of their I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To EP below. You can preorder the record here.
I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To EP Tracklist:
1. Who Are You? (Alternative Version)
2. Priority Mail (Alternative Version)
3. Broken Body (Acoustic Version)
I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To EP Art:
