illuminati hotties has released new single “u v v p,” featuring Buck Meek of Big Thief. “u v v p” shows a slightly softer side to Tuzdin’s craft with a feature by Buck Meek. On the song she notes: “the road toward fulfillment is lonesome and dusty for a rambling ranger like yourself. for when you need a deputy’s hand, a sling of something sweet, or just a breather in paradise, there’s ‘u v v p.’ i brought along my pal Buck Meek to remind you to say something about how special your beau may be to you, even if you’re too shy to muster up the courage.”

illuminati hotties were recently announced as support for Death Cab For Cutie on their upcoming west coast run in September. Then, On October 2nd, the band will make their return to Los Angeles for their headlining show at Zebulon. See all illuminati hotties tour dates below:

illuminati hotties
2021 tour dates:

09/15/21 – Las Vegas, NV – The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan *
09/16/21 – Reno, NV – The Grand Theatre at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino *
09/17/21 – Napa, CA – Oxbow RiverStage *
10/02/21 – Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon – SOLD OUT

* supporting/ Death Cab For Cutie

More on Let Me Do One More from Hanif Abdurraqib

I have this pal who insists that all writers, all makers, all people who put anything in the world outside of themselves – we should all come to terms with the fact that nothing we do is finished. An acceptance, this pal says, that will bring so many of us closer to contentment with the fact that we sometimes age beyond whatever it is we create, and there’s no real way to adjust for that except to honor our emotional evolution and the work that allowed us to crawl our way towards it.

I’m not always invested in this idea as I should be, admittedly, but there’s something I love about knowing that the work can be revised as I revise the self, or that old work can be tended to in the search for new work.

But before I get into all of that, the high-reaching impact of aging beyond our creations and aching for corrections before they slip through their fingers, let me say that most importantly, I love any Illuminati Hotties album because Sarah Tudzin is one of my favorite types of writers: A writer who takes their craft seriously, but refuses to take themselves seriously. It is an achievement for album to hold a song as fluorescently tender as “Threatening Each Other,” teeming with an ever-growing longing and also a song as raucous and thrilling as “Pool Hopping,” which feels and sounds like the unfurling of a mischievous summer’s night with nothing to do other than cause some trouble with yourself and a small and eager crew.

To retreat to my initial point, though, what makes this album even more of an achievement is how the album arrived in the world and what it carries with it. For those who fell in love with Free I.H., as I did, you perhaps were drawn to it, as I was, by the miracle of an album that sounded unrestricted and autonomous. Not messy in an unrefined way, but messy in a way that was held up by risk-taking, and discovery.

To have that album and all of its brilliance exist by way of exit from a sticky and untenable label situation led Tudzin back here, to these songs that were, largely, written and put together before Free I.H. was made. But this is how the process works when it comes to the creation of almost anything: the work makes a path to the work. It’s unromantic, probably. But with any luck, every time any of us sits down to create something, we walk out of it a little better or a little more skilled or a little more tender than we were before. And, also with any luck, we get to take all of that back into the world.

All of this brings me to the somewhat joyful act of revision as a tool not to correct your past self, but to revel in what you’ve created, what you are capable and might not be capable of again, with the reality that nothing is promised. It might be the darkness of the year – leaving me with no choice but to seek optimism around every corner – but Let Me Do One More is an album that sounds, to me, as hopeful and thrilling as newly discovered freedom. The lock you’ve been picking at for hours, finally falling to the floor, and the door opening to the weather you love most. Even the songs that sound winding and beautifully anguished, like “Kickflip,” feel like a release. To say nothing of the slow-moving cocoon-like nature of “Growth,” which encases me in something that feels like warmth. I love an album like this one: an album that doesn’t spare any complexity but still manages to be life-giving, and oh, how it is needed now.

Before even pressing play on the music, I suggest sinking into the title. If you, like me, are a sucker for titles and the joys of what they can hold. You might be like me, in that you maybe know a pal or love a pal who knows how to pull a night past whatever its logical ending point may be. The person who, when you are exhausted and dragging at 2am (though I am being generous to my present self here, it is more like midnight these days) turns up the radio and encourages a singalong, or finds a bit of mischief to collapse into right at the last minute. I’m thinking of those people now, the people I love, aching for a little more time together, a little more moonlight and a little more of the possibility it brings.

The outdoors are treacherous and in many ways untenable at the time of writing this, though I am trying for optimism. I love this album beyond its title, but I love its title for what it awakened in me. The memory of a different time, when touch was not at a premium. A time that might be slightly obsolete by the season you spin this record in. A time when I’d hear Let Me Do One More as a small and affectionate ode: let’s stay together a while. Let’s share something else. I’m not done yet.