Will Butler + Sister Squares announce their new self-titled album out September 22 on Merge and present its lead single/video, “Long Grass.” Listen to and stream the song anywhere you listen to music, and pre-order Will Butler + Sister Squares on CD, LP, and limited-edition natural with blue swirl Peak Vinyl from the Merge store. The first 250 vinyl pre-orders receive a FREE 12“ x 12” bonus print that features an outtake from visual artist and long-time Will Butler + Sister Squares collaborator Marcel Dzama's series of works inspired by the album!

Sister Squares are Miles Francis, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Sara Dobbs; what made them a musical unit was working with Grammy winner and Oscar nominee Will Butler. The resulting Will Butler + Sister Squares is a record with a warm, humane soul.

“I met Jenny—my wife!—in college, the year before I joined Arcade Fire,” says Will. “When I needed a band to tour Policy, I asked [Jenny’s sister] Julie to join because I trusted her musically. And I asked Sara, Jenny and Julie’s childhood friend, because I knew she was super talented,” says Will. “Antibalas (who I was drumming for) opened some Arcade Fire shows,” says Miles, who offered to play drums anytime Will needed. Will, Julie, Sara, and Miles jelled on tour and everyone worked on vocal arrangements. All along, Jenny contributed to recordings and general performance ideas, and she joined onstage in 2019.

“After Generations, I considered making a weird solo record. Me alone in the basement, etc., etc. Mostly I realized that what I wanted was the opposite,” says Will. He increasingly turned to the band for feedback on lyrics and song structures. He asked Miles if they’d produce the record.

“Will and I organically discovered our relationship as a production duo through making this album. We didn’t have to talk too much about things as they happened, because the music just flowed,” says Miles. “As a producer, working with Jenny, Julie, and Sara is the dream. They connect so innately. In one motion they can conjure a mood, or get at the root of a feeling.”

The album projects widescreen emotional landscapes. Lead-off single “Long Grass” is like a Harry Styles song with 20 more years of life behind it. “I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s,” says Will. “It’s about an artist looking back on his childhood in a small town in Kyrgyzstan in WWII. It’s about love, and becoming an artist, and melancholy, and vast landscapes with a single train track running through them. And it reminded me of young adulthood, of wandering moodily down the train tracks. Maybe the song is also about leaving behind the things that formed us, but trying to remember the world as it used to be?”

Will Butler + Sister Squares will tour in support of their new album this fall.

Will Butler + Sister Squares on Tour
July 29-30 Guelph, ON – Hillside Festival
Sep 23 Brooklyn, NY – Zone One
Oct 04 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
Oct 06 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
Oct 07 Seattle, WA – Barboza
Oct 08 Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
Oct 17 Boston, MA – Deep Cuts
Oct 18 Montreal, QC – Bar le Ritz
Oct 19 Toronto, ON – Lee's Palace
Oct 20 Detroit, MI – Loving Touch
Oct 21 Chicago, IL – Sleeping Village
Oct 22 Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
Nov 07 Riga, LV – Palladium 
Nov 10 Berlin, DE – Privatclub
Nov 12 Aarhus, DK – VoxHall
Nov 14 Rotterdam, NL – Rotown
Nov 15 Paris, FR – Café de la Danse
Nov 16 Brussels, BE – Botanique
Nov 17 London, UK – ICA
Nov 18 Dublin, IE – Whelan’s
Nov 30 Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA
Dec 01 Washington, DC – DC9
Dec 02 Durham, NC – Motorco Music Hall