Yesterday, Hotline TNT, the project of Brooklyn-based musician Will Anderson, announced their new album and Third Man Records debut, Cartwheel, and presents the melodic thrill of lead single/video, ‘I Thought You’d Change’.
Cartwheel is the band’s follow-up to Nineteen In Love, a record that’s influence has spread through fervent word-of-mouth these last couple of years. Hotline TNT toured relentlessly, enduring seemingly endless line-up shifts to become a linchpin of several interconnecting DIY scenes. Their audience steadily ballooned, with Nineteen in Love becoming a coveted LP.
With Cartwheel, Anderson made the leap, as he’s often done in love and life and music, and ended up making one of the year’s most sweeping and affirming statements. Cartwheel is an endlessly romantic testament to reaching for something that slips forever out of grasp.
‘I Thought You’d Change’ turns up the tempo and turns the tables, allowing two jilted lovers to offer their bemused but bummed takes on what happened between them. “There’s a part of me that still feels weird,” Anderson admits as the drums cave in around him, wondering if there’s still a chance even as he knows that there probably shouldn’t be.
Following the previously-shared ‘Protocol,’ which was praised by So Young as “static sounds blending with grunge, pop and hints of shoegaze… (the track) screams red leather and wolf-cut bangs and fans lining up for hours to see the show front row.” ‘I Thought You’d Change’ is presented alongside a video directed by Eric Rahill. Of the song, Anderson says “This song is about wanting a friendship to turn into something more, seeing it happen against all odds, wondering if it was the right thing to do, then wanting it to change back to a friendship or even a secret third style of attachment that I can’t identify or hold onto. This is the first time I’ve written a song that switches back and forth between two narrators, and I’m not sure which words are supposed to be mine and which are from my lover.”
Following a sold out show at The Lexington with label-mates Island Of Love in the summer, Hotline TNT will return to the UK in November for a string of dates around further new material, including a performance from Pitchfork London.
HOTLINE TNT UK TOUR DATES
Mon. Nov. 6 – Glasgow, UK @ Hug & Pint w/ Snõõper
Tue. Nov. 7 – Manchester, UK @ YES Basement w/ Snõõper
Wed. Nov. 8 – Newcastle, UK @ Bobiks
Thu. Nov. 9 – Sheffield, UK @ Delicious Clam
Fri. Nov. 10 – London, UK @ George Tavern
Sat. Nov. 11 – London, UK @ Pitchfork Festival London
HOTLINE TNT US TOUR DATES
Sat. Sept. 9 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Music Festival
Sun. Sept. 17 – Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
Tue. Oct. 3 – Portsmouth, NH @ The Press Room *
Wed. Oct. 4 – Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom *
Thu. Oct. 5 – Garwood, NJ @ Crossroads *
Fri. Oct. 6 – Norfolk, VA @ Chincho’s Backstage *
Sat. Oct. 7 – Asheville, NC @ Different WRLD *^
Sun. Oct. 8 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl *
Mon. Oct. 9 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man Records *
Tue. Oct. 10 – Memphis, TN @ Growlers *
Wed. Oct. 11 – St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill Buck Room *
Fri. Oct. 13 – Lawrence, KS @ Bottleneck *
Sat. Oct. 14 – Minneapolis, MN @ Snow & Flurry *
Sun. Oct. 15 – Milwaukee, WI @ X-Ray Arcade *
Mon. Oct. 16 – Detroit, MI @ Third Man Records *
Tue. Oct. 17 – Cleveland, OH @ No Class *
Fri. Nov. 24 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre $
Sat. Nov. 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall $
Mon. Nov. 27 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall $
Tue. Nov. 28 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre $
Wed. Nov. 29 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos $
Fri. Dec. 1 – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club $
Sat. Dec. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent $
* w/ Sheer Mag
^ w/ Poison Ruin
% w/ Snõõper
$ w/ Quicksand
Hotline TNT ‘Cartwheel’
Out November 3rd on Third Man Records
Tracklist:
1. Protocol
2. I Thought You’d Change
3. Beauty Filter
4. History Channel
5. I Know You
6. Son In Law
7. Out of Town
8. Maxine
9. That Was My Life
10. Spot Me
11. BMX
12. Stump
Further info on Hotline TNT:
Will Anderson believes in true love – as both concept and catalyst, aspiration and inspiration. During his 34 years, the Hotline TNT founder and architect has found such love perhaps half-a-dozen times. Each instance has prompted some enormous swing of commitment, like a cross-country move or simply being honest about his budding attraction. It is a hopeful and vulnerable way to exist, a way to ensure maximum bruising during the fall of the breakup. And so far for Anderson, that is how it has always ended, whether the air has slowly seeped out of some once-full balloon or whether it has simply popped, those expanded feelings expelled in an instant.
This tension is the brain, blood, and beating heart of Cartwheel, the byproduct of Anderson’s decades-long quest to pin down the surging sound long in his head. But borne of real hurt and continued hope, lit by the flickering belief that just maybe things will sort themselves out, Cartwheel transcends those scene associations to become something greater – a classic encapsulation of youthful ardour, fading into adulthood’s grim acceptance. It is a beautiful, radical, and engrossing record about trying to find what most of us have not yet attained: fulfilment.
Anderson plays and sings nearly every note on Cartwheel himself. He recorded the bulk of these songs during two very different sessions: one with prolific art-pop-punk auteur Ian Teeple (Silicone Prairie), who pushed him to keep working on every idea, and one with bicoastal engineer Aron Kobayashi Rich (Momma), who encouraged him to get ideas down and keep moving forward. But Cartwheel itself is seamless, with notions of bedroom studio largesse and punk simplicity perfectly coiled inside Anderson’s catastrophic visions of true love.
This autumn, Hotline TNT will embark on both a US tour, bringing their storied live set to a slew of cities – including a performance at Hopscotch Music Festival, followed by stops in Nashville, Atlanta, Cleveland and more alongside Sheer Mag – before the band heads on a brief stint in the UK. These newly announced dates follow the just-wrapped West Coast run of The Trip, where Hotline TNT toured alongside They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Enumclaw, Toner and Sword II. With a rotating headlining line-up and no public set times, the sold-out high-energy shows in traditional venues, skate shops, and dilapidated DIY spaces serves as a testament to the singular support of the modern “shoegaze” scene – the sort of local music communities that have been a bedrock for Hotline TNT, guiding how the project exists. A full list of upcoming dates is below and tickets are on sale now.