THAO Releases New Single "Catch As Catch Can" With Neko Case

Thao, formerly performing as Thao and The Get Down Stay Down, has released a new single, 'Catch As Catch Can,' featuring Neko Case. The song is available across platforms.

The single precedes Thao's first album in six years, Show Me, due out October 30 via Kill Rock Stars. The album was co-produced with Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner of Tune-Yards, and Thao will embark on a 2026 North American fall tour in support of the release. $1 of ticket sales from the San Francisco and Los Angeles shows will be donated to Working Families Power.

Primal, expansive, sexy and wrenchingly tender-hearted, critically acclaimed songwriter and performer Thao will release Show Me on October 30 via Kill Rock Stars. A suite of lush, lovingly crafted and powerfully voiced songs that act as portals into Thao's kaleidoscopic inner life, the album was self-produced alongside Nate Brenner (also a co-writer) and Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards and features special guests: Tune-Yards, The Linda Lindas, Neko Case and Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas).

Thao's songwriting is at once stunningly intimate and sweepingly cinematic with many new album tracks coming to life via imagined film scenes that she couldn't stop seeing. This is beautifully exemplified with new album single 'Catch As Catch Can' ft. Neko Case, released today. Thao explains, ''Catch as Catch Can' is from the (hot!) image of bodies surrendering to each other in the ocean, bodies surrendering to the animal in one another, a remote lighthouse, the doorway of a cottage by a virulent sea. Just those images, on repeat.' She laughs. 'Whatever gets the job done, you know?' The propulsive yet serpentine melody is enhanced by the inimitable vocals of featured guest Neko Case - one of Nguyen's all time favorite songwriters and singers.

'Neko singing on a song of mine is a dream come true,' Thao says. 'So many thousands of miles logged on tour have had her voice as the soundtrack. Whenever I put on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood I see mountains and desert and feel my heart in my throat. I've been so honored and fortunate to get to open for Neko a few different times over the years. Her career trajectory and how she operates in this industry has always inspired me. When I first heard her majestic voice on this song I teared up.'

Sometimes life starts educating you before you are ready to receive the lesson. In the midst of her multidisciplinary artistic forays, Thao's personal life underwent a reckoning: divorce, the upending of a home. 'I learned that the point of life is not to emerge unscathed, and that I don't want to operate as I always have — masking fear as indifference,' she says. 'This album is a real-time record-keeping of my life evolving into a different relationship with love and desire over the last few years. For example, I came out publicly years ago but I've never really written a song about sex or queer identity. So, that's in there,' she winks. 'Some songs are snapshots of moments I've never felt before. Some are ruminations of what I need to keep, what I want to shear, what I want to move toward.' In the shearing spirit, out went her long-time band name — Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. Show Me is a record of that journey.

The songwriter has been busy outside the realm of record making since her last album Temple: guest-hosting the Song Exploder podcast, hosting the PBS TV show Southern Storytellers, developing a musical, film scoring and film starring (with collaborator/ Macarthur Fellow artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, currently on exhibit in contemporary art institutions), gracing the cover of New York Times's T Magazine, performing on Fred Armisen's 2018 Netflix special Standup for Drummers and working on her first book for publisher Graywolf Press.

Tour Dates

11/3: Los Angeles @ Lodge Room

11/8: San Francisco @ The Independent

11/11: Kingston, NY @ Unicorn

11/12: New York City @ Mercury Lounge

11/13: Providence, RI @ Alchemy

11/14: Brattleboro, VT @ Stone Church

Tickets are available via Thao's website.

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