THAO has announced her new album Show Me will arrive on October 30 via Kill Rock Stars. The LP is a deeply personal exploration of her journey toward full embodiment; a flaying of flesh and old burden to reveal the rapturously beating heart therein. Show Me was self-produced alongside Nate Brenner (also a co-writer) and Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards and features special guests: Tune-Yards, The Linda Lindas, Neko Case and Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas).

Lead single “Sick of the Times” features vocals from The Linda Lindas and close friend and collaborator Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards (who are also featured in the video for the track). “I wanted it to be an anthem that will be used at political rallies, grass roots organizing and mutual aid events, anything that can help us emotionally prepare to activate and to stay politically engaged at all levels, but especially at the local level,” says Nguyen. “We need to keep each other buoyant, to remind ourselves we’ve got the numbers and the imperative.” Putting action to her ideas, THAO has teamed up once again with Working Families Power to donate $1 per ticket for her newly announced west coast dates.

Sometimes life starts educating you before you are ready to receive the lesson. In the midst of her multidisciplinary artistic forays, THAO’s personal life underwent a reckoning: divorce, the upending of a home. “I learned that the point of life is not to emerge unscathed, and that I don’t want to operate as I always have — masking fear as indifference,” she says. “This album is a real-time record-keeping of my life evolving into a different relationship with love and desire over the last few years. For example, I came out publicly years ago but I’ve never really written a song about sex or queer identity. So, that’s in there,” she winks. “Some songs are snapshots of moments I’ve never felt before. Some are ruminations of what I need to keep, what I want to shear, what I want to move toward.” In the shearing spirit, out went her long-time band name — Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. Show Me is a record of that journey.

The singer/songwriter has  guest-hosted the iconic Song Exploder podcast, hosting the PBS TV show Southern Storytellers, developing a musical, film scoring and film starring (with collaborator/ Macarthur Fellow artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, currently on exhibit in contemporary art institutions), and  performing on Fred Armisen’s 2018 Netflix special Standup for Drummers, and  now working on her first book for  publisher Graywolf Press.

THAO
Show Me
tracklist
Kill Rock Stars

1. Fossils
2. Sick of the Times (ft. Tune-Yards & The Linda Lindas)
3. Nguyen Nguyen Lose Lose (ft. Adrian Quesada)
4. Take It Easy
5. Give & Want
6. Enemy
7. Jeans Genes
8. How I Needed You
9. Catch As Catch Can (ft. Neko Case)
10. Close Up
11. Show Me

THAO 2026 Tour Dates

11/3: Los Angeles @ Lodge Room
11/8: San Francisco @ The Chapel
11/11: Kingston, NY @ Unicorn
11/12: New York City @ Mercury Lounge
11/13: Providence, RI @ Alchemy
11/14: Brattleboro, VT @ Stone Church

Pre-order Show Me by THAO HERE