Slow Fiction today released “turning down flowers,” the track is off their recently announced debut album dollhouse, available August 7th via Tight Knit. The band includes vocalist Julia Vassallo, guitarists Paul Knepple and Joseph Skimmons, bassist Ryan Duffin, and drummer Akiva Henig. In other news, the band will play a record release show at TV Eye on August 8th, ahead of their tour supporting Swervedriver. “turning down flowers” serves as an expression of unapologetic vulnerability. Vassallo explains: “When I was younger, I used to love that the word ‘together’ split up was ‘to get her.’ At this point, it’s unrealistic to expect every song a woman sings about womanhood or an exploration of existing in a certain body to be uplifting and overtly empowering… that’s not equality. We should be able to express being super existentially depressed about our place in a room, and act weird about it. I don’t think we’re typically allotted that space, especially in certain genres of music and art.” The self-produced dollhouse, mixed by Sonny DiPerri (DIIV, Julie), is available for pre-order HERE.

dollhouse embraces transformation, exploring identity and performance, and the varying perspectives expressed across it reinforce a sense of self the band has spent years building–trying on different angles without losing their center. More than anything, it reflects a band learning to let go: of expectations, of habits, and of the need to have all the answers before the music exists. Many songs had spread their limbs live onstage, becoming fleshed out over a few tours. But instead of recreating those versions, the band chose to unlearn them. Songs often began or became fragments—late-night ideas and half-formed lyrics that didn’t fully make sense until much later. Recording began in August 2025, with final mixes completed in January with the help of DiPerri. The band embraced trial and error, pulling from whatever was within reach: vintage instruments, unfamiliar textures, and spontaneous ideas. A pump organ, Mellotron, and vocoder became central simply because they were there. Self-producing became “another layer of the songwriting,” as Knepple puts it.

Slow Fiction Tour Dates:

08/08 – Brooklyn, NY – TV Eye (dollhouse LP release show)
08/18 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair *
08/19 – Montreal, QC – Bar le Ritz *
08/20 – Ottawa, ON – The Bronson *
08/21 – Toronto, ON – Phoenix Concert Theatre *
08/22 – Detroit, MI – El Club *
08/23 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall *
08/25 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop *
08/26 – Washington, DC – The Atlantis *
08/27 – Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts *
08/28 – Jersey City, NJ – White Eagle Hall *
08/29 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg *

Pre-order dollhouse by Slow Fiction HERE