U.K. quartet Goat Girl have delivered another new single/video ahead of their forthcoming sophomore album On All Fours (out Jan. 29 via Rough Trade Records), the unsettling climate change elegy “Badibaba.” The band’s new track is “about environmental catastrophe and the pessimism and self-destruction that this causes to the human spirit,” Goat Girl guitarist/vocalist L.E.D. explains. “We have a parasitic relationship to the earth, taking more than we need and not replenishing it. Greed is a human plague.” “Badibaba” is the third single from On All Fours, following September’s “Sad Cowboy” and December’s “The Crack.”
“Burn it / Use it up / Hang it from the setting sun,” L.E.D. sings over garbled synths and muted guitars on “Badibaba,” bemoaning our collective tendency to use the world up like we’ve got another in our back pocket. The single’s eerie lyric video (dir. Toby and Ethan Evans-Jesra) overlays footage of nature with subtly macabre imagery, displaying a demonic, disembodied clay face during the song’s choruses—as if “Badibaba” is an evil spirit, the living, malevolent representation of our avarice. As the song crescendoes, nature disappears into the darkness, with Badibaba’s sinister grimace overtaking the screen. Illustrations flash and spin, overwhelming the video itself as Goat Girl’s instrumentation spirals, a cyclone of distorted guitars, whipsawing synths and cymbal crashes. “Badibaba” finally collapses under its own weight, as if having undergone a cataclysm from which there’s no recovering.
Along with their new single, Goat Girl have shared … (*does a double take*) … yeah, wow, those are new tour dates. The band has set a nine-date September U.K. headlining run, so here’s hoping the U.K. can overcome its recent struggles to contain the spread of COVID-19. Pre-sale tickets for these shows are on sale as of today (Jan. 19) via the band’s website, with general on-sale kicking off on Jan. 21 at 5 a.m. ET.
Watch the “Badibaba” video below. You’ll find Goat Girl’s tour dates further down.
Goat Girl Tour Dates:
September
14 – Bristol, U.K. @ Trinity
15 – London, U.K. @ Islington Assembly Hall
16 – Birmingham, U.K. @ Mama Roux’s
18 – Dublin, Ireland @ Whelan’s
20 – Liverpool, UK @ Phase One
21 – Glasgow, Scotland @ BAAD
22 – Manchester, U.K. @ Gorilla
24 – Brighton, U.K. @ Concorde 2
25 – Southampton, U.K. @ The Loft
