Mildred announce debut album ‘Fenceline’, out 24 April via Memorials of Distinction / Dog Day Records
| MILDRED ANNOUNCE DEBUT ALBUM FENCELINE, OUT 24 APRIL VIA MEMORIALS OF DISTINCTION / DOG DAY RECORDS SHARE VIDEO FOR LEAD SINGLE ‘FISH STICKS’ LIMITED DINKED EDITION PRE-ORDER AVAILABLE NOW US TOUR WITH NAIMA BOCK THROUGHOUT FEBRUARY “A beautiful song that might have been designed for autumn: slow-paced, it gradually washes over you, infused with a weary sadness” The Guardian “Imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close […] deft songwriting that aims to unpick standard tropes and surprise at every turn. A fantastic introduction” Clash “The storytelling is packed with poetic flairs and turns of phrase” The Line of Best Fit “How about this very nice two and half minutes of country-pop longing called Water by a band named Mildred, a quartet of singer-songwriters based in Oakland, California? It’s great, isn’t it” The New Cue “If you haven’t yet encountered Mildred […] you’re in for a treat” Uncut “Mildred proves that friendship and spontaneity can create something beautifully unexpected” Still Listening Watch the video for ‘Fish Sticks’ here: https://youtu.be/KXvp5Q4XrqY Bandcamp | Instagram | TikTok Mildred have today announced their debut album Fenceline will be released on 24 April via Memorials of Distinction / Dog Day Records. Along with the announcement they have shared the Nick Roberts directed video for lead single ‘Fish Sticks’. Speaking of ‘Fish Sticks’ and the album, Mildred say: “Fish Sticks is a song of scenes from two worlds. Conversations with your boss. Acute workplace mediocrity. Riding home and eating fish sticks with your friends. For UK audiences, a fish stick is a fish finger, ideally Alaskan-caught cod. The song comes packaged in Fenceline, an album about conversations with old friends, little cousins, ceaseless piles of dust in your crumbling duplex, loves and theologians and their books. Fencelines mark two places but belong to neither. Neither nor, either or.” Ahead of Fenceline, at the end of last year Mildred released their debut twin EPs mild and red, an insatiable collection of songs birthed before Mildred even knew they were a band. Arriving purposefully on the scene in that gentle, approachable Mildred way, the EPs picked up support from The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, Uncut (‘We’re New Here’), The New Cue, Clash, DIY and more. Before they had even widely released any music, they also played made their debut on UK shores with a headline show at The Windmill in Brixton (initiating impromptu acapella during a sudden blackout), as well as playing at London’s The Shacklewell Arms and Bristol’s The Louisiana. Mildred is a band from Oakland, CA of four equal parts. They don’t have a lead singer, no one person writes the songs. The songs that make up Fenceline come together as a group with their genesis sprouting from any one of their members – Henry Easton Koehler (vocals, guitar), Jack Schrott (vocals, guitar), Matt Palmquist (vocals, bass, woodwinds) or Will Fortna (drums, production) – each time. The songs are often wrestled from the lead writer by the other three, a lyric might have been mumbled absentmindedly for a few days before one of the other three grabs at it. If you ask any Mildred member what their favourite part of Fenceline is, it will never be something they wrote. If you pin them down and ask them what their favourite part of something they did write was, it will always be something somebody else added to it. This is what makes Mildred – in many ways a timeless four piece – so special. This wonderfully easy bond between four friends just hanging out and writing songs is so palpable it’s intoxicating. Summed up neatly by Clash saying, “imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close”, Mildred make music that is pure and poetic, gently addictive and never overwrought. They describe the creation of the band as being born from “deciding that playing/talking about/thinking about music together is fun and something we want to structure our lives around as best we can”. Mildred is a vehicle for these four people to continue to spend time in each other’s company. Most bands are formed so they can get out of whatever diy space they start out playing in, Mildred was formed so they can spend more time there. The space in question for Mildred is a house. The Ward St. house in Berkeley to be exact, already a landmark in Mildred lore. When Fenceline began taking shape Henry, Jack, Matt, and occasionally Will were living there together; Matt hunkered in an “extra-legal” room in the attic where he bathed on his knees and Henry and Will would have to stoop to visit. Jack and Henry shared a wall in adjacent shoeboxes on the middle floor, Henry staring directly out at an old walnut tree they nicknamed Walter. Will was away studying in the desert but would stay whenever he was in town. While living on Ward St. they would write songs in the porous space between the kitchen and the living room after dinner, before they even knew they were a band. After that they would go up to the roof – beautifully painted by Jack for the cover of Fenceline -, Jones the cat often creeping up the stairs curiously behind, and talk the songs over some more, or just continue hanging out. This is what makes the songs on Fenceline hang together, naturally, as roommates do. These four people are very different in many ways. Jack is a PHD student, often working underground, studying the atom beyond any conceivable point. Will is an environmental lawyer. Matt is an architect, a job he took up properly after a year in a Benedictine monastery. Henry works in affordable housing, helps his dad grow beans, and plays a lot of basketball. The lyrics for their songs are written largely alone and often draw from their own individual lives and experiences but there’s a shared something there. “It makes sense when common threads emerge” they say, “because we do things together a lot as friends: cook, laze about on a weekend, listen to an album, go walkabout, read, go see movies etc. People will tell us after seeing us live that we’re, “like… a real band.” There’s maybe a shared rhythm and camaraderie in our lives that comes through in the music.” That shared something takes many forms: flaming pinecones floating down the river, scattered papers and dog-eared books, exhausting party conversation and Irish goodbyes, leaves the colour of UPS trucks. Songs often take place across whole days: long days working at Henry’s aunt and uncle’s farm, an afternoon down in San Francisco on the day the sailors come in and booze all day in their cracker-jack uniforms, one of those youthful afternoons that seemed to stretch forever. Others stem from a shared love of a good reference; breadcrumbs dropped from old favourite books, songs and poems, or Matt’s favourite little red book on architecture, waiting to be found by those who love to go over lyrics with a fine-toothed comb. Strikingly literal or intriguingly oblique, Mildred have a remarkable way with lyrics that lodge themselves in your head softly but with such determination that they begin to feel like shimmering memories from your own life. Fenceline is a collection of songs that you want to hold close and delve into, and yet play to everyone you know. Mildred were eventually turfed out of Ward St. and the songs were fleshed out in Matt’s new abode – the garage of a handsome but fragile 97-year-old ex-lawyer/taxi driver who likes to chat about baseball – and for recording, the band took a week off work and decamped to Luke Temple’s studio in Echo Park, LA. There was one exception to this recording setup. While in Bristol with a free afternoon, Mildred took ‘Fish Sticks’ to a friend, Jack Ogborne aka Bingo Fury (The Cindys, Naima Bock), to give it another go in his studio in the basement of a centuries-old pub across the street from what used to be a prison, with a secret passageway connecting the two. It’s not easy to tell that ‘Fish Sticks’ has a very different recording setup as it settles so comfortably in with the rest of Fenceline; but the change of scenery gave it new life and a final product – an endlessly repayable distillation of the Mildred sound with a central guitar line for the ages and irresistible harmonies – that they all liked so much it became the lead single. A bit of tinkering, overdubs and a beautifully cohesive final mix from Will followed by mastering from GRAMMY nominee Jason Mitchell, and Fenceline was finished. Purchase Fenceline on limited vinyl and CD here: https://bfan.link/fenceline Purchase the 250 limited ‘UPS Brown’ Dinked Edition here: https://ffm.bio/mildred Photo credit: Kevin Herhusky High-res images can be found here |
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| Fenceline cover art painting by Jack Schrott Fenceline tracklist: 1. UPS Brown 2. Fish Sticks 3. Charlie 4. Cobwebs 5. Fenceline 6. Fleet Week 7. Aquinas 8. Mumblecore Melody 9. Pitch Boats 10. Hardcore of Beauty 2026 tour with Naima Bock: 5 Feb – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern 6 Feb – Walla Walla, WA @ Billsville West 7 Feb – Portland, OR @ Show Bar 9 Feb – Oakland, CA @ Ivy Room 10 Feb – Los Angeles, CA @ Gold Diggers 12 Feb – Flagstaff, AZ @ Flagstaff Fadeaway 13 Feb – Santa Fe, NM @ Sweet Lyells 15 Feb – Austin, TX @ Hole In The Wall Front Room 17 Feb – Nashville, TN @ Random Sample 18 Feb – Asheville, NC @ Ayurprana Listening Room 19 Feb – Durham, NC @ Perfect Lovers 20 Feb – Baltimore, MD @ Normals Books & Records 21 Feb – New York, NT @ Night Club 101 Tickets are available here: https://www.naimabock.com/ Praise for Mildred: “A beautiful song that might have been designed for autumn: slow-paced, it gradually washes over you, infused with a weary sadness” The Guardian “Imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close […] deft songwriting that aims to unpick standard tropes and surprise at every turn. A fantastic introduction” Clash “The storytelling is packed with poetic flairs and turns of phrase” The Line of Best Fit “How about this very nice two and half minutes of country-pop longing called Water by a band named Mildred, a quartet of singer-songwriters based in Oakland, California? It’s great, isn’t it” The New Cue “If you haven’t yet encountered Mildred […] you’re in for a treat” Uncut “Mildred proves that friendship and spontaneity can create something beautifully unexpected” Still Listening “They’re my favourite band”Naima Bock via Uncut “They’re never flashy, instead their gently perfect vocals harmonies, and slowly unfurling instrumentation show the devil’s in the details…and what gorgeous details they are!” For The Rabbits “A beguiling, gentle introduction to the sound of Mildred” God Is In The TV ‘Tracks of the Week’ “Hypnotising in its drift and quietly devastating in its emotional undercurrent” Atwood “One of the best new bands on the scene” Americana UK “An overarching feeling of warmth and openness” The Most Radicalist ‘List Pick’ “Ever-compelling and wildly talented” To Be Frank “Intoxicating” Joyzine |