Friendship—the Philadelphia-based quartet of Dan Wriggins, Peter Gill, Michael Cormier-O’Leary, and Jon Samuels—are back with “Free Association,” the lead single from their new album Caveman Wakes Up, out May 16. Listen to “Free Association” wherever you stream music, and pre-order Caveman Wakes Up on CD or LP from the Merge store!

The news is accompanied by a Zach Puls–directed video for “Free Association” in which Wriggins stares down a New Jersey boardwalk, closed for the winter, while Samuels and Cormier-O’Leary, equipped with microphones and a Super 8 camera, hunt for clues.

Dan Wriggins on “Free Association”:

Another one about love and other people and how the only hope we’ve got in the search for meaning is to make it up. I was hanging out with the folk singer Kath Bloom years ago in her yard, by the barn, and I think I made a comment on an ancient riding mower she had, and she said, “Yeah, everything we have was given to us.” “Born with a weak heart,” of course, swiped from David Byrne. The Mellotron sax and voice patch were both jokes that we ended up loving. Also the only song with synth bass. We’re proud as hell of the production.

As for the video, Zach Puls directed it. We went to Seaside Heights, NJ. Realized after the fact that Jersey Shore took place there. We were hunting for a lost empire, but I can’t reveal too much. 

On Caveman Wakes Up, Friendship’s historically capacious definition of country music grows wider still. Shambolic guitars are offset by flute pads, bleary poetry is set against a Motown rhythm section, a song about Jerry Garcia and First Lady Betty Ford fades out with a drum solo, like if Talk Talk came from a dingy Philadelphia basement and was fronted by James Tate. 

Like an alarm clock incorporated into the edge of a dream, Caveman Wakes Up belongs equally to the conscious and subconscious mind, fraught with background, steeped in reference and experimentation, delivered casually and as a dire warning, dedicated, above all, to music’s creative soul.

Friendship will hit the road for a brief tour before the release of Caveman Wakes Up, with more dates to come. 

Friendship on tour:
Apr 05 Durham NC – Brickside at Duke Coffeehouse
Apr 06 Asheville, NC – Ayurprana
Apr 07 Columbia, SC – New Brookland Tavern