Before the Breeders open more shows for Olivia Rodrigo next month, the band’s frontperson releases a new Steve Albini-produced single
Jimmy Buffett died last year, but his influence lives on in unexpected ways. Start with “Coast,” the first new solo single in a decade from Breeders‘ frontperson Kim Deal. According to Deal, the song came about four years ago when she attended a friend’s nuptials and heard the wedding band play Buffett’s “Margaritaville.” Combined with an unsatisfying trip she took too many years ago to Nantucket — where she went to “duck and roll out of my life,” she sings — Deal concocted her own, ironic take on a bummed-out escapist tune.
With its cement-mixer guitar crunch and Deal’s deadpan delivery, “Coast” lands very much in the Breeders tradition; Deal’s sister Kelly plays guitar, and former band bassist Mando Lopez also contributes. Woozy horns and a lazy, laconic guitar lead only add to Deal’s wry observations on the local surfers checking the swells on the WAM chart: “All hold up and abandon plans for the good times/Where forgotten roads take lost lives/To beautiful kids on the coast.”
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The song marks the latest return of Deal, following the Breeders opening select shows on Olivia Rodrigo’s tour earlier this year; more dates with her will follow next month. A new generation jammed into arenas was introduced to “Cannonball” and other songs from the band’s 30-year repertoire.
“Coast” is doubly newsworthy in that it was recorded by the late Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. Albini, the iconoclastic producer who remained a steadfast champion of indie and outlier music, died in May.
