New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today, with the announcement of their latest and most liberating album to date, Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra, they/them) opens the doorway to a language and world that are finally their own. Out February 23, 2024, on Nonesuch Records, The Past Is Still Alive represents a new beginning in Segarra's lauded evolution as a storyteller. During a period of pain and personal grief, they found inspiration in radical poetry, railroad culture, outsider art, the work of writer Eileen Myles, and the history of activist groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury. Discovering a stronger, more singular style of writing, Segarra uses their lyrics as memory boxes to process their trauma, identity and dreams for the future. They immortalize and say goodbye to those they have loved and lost, illustrate the many shapes and patterns of time's passing, and honor the heartbroken and the hopeful parts of themselves, as they deliver a first-person telling of their life so far. It is both a memoir and a roadmap, and though The Past Is Still Alive was made in North Carolina and produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Kevin Morby, Waxahatchee), the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based Segarra brings listeners to places far beyond: vivid experiences of small shops and buffalo stampedes in Santa Fe, childhood road trips to Florida, struggles of addiction in the Lower East Side, days-long journeys to outrun the cops in Nebraska, and more across their most magnetic collection of songs yet.
Nonesuch Store orders include a limited-edition, autographed print of handwritten lyrics to the song "Colossus of Roads" while they last.
You can watch the video for the opening track, "Alibi," directed by Eric Stafford, here:
"The Past Is Still Alive is an album grappling with time, memory, love and loss, recorded in Durham, NC, a month after losing my father," Segarra says. "'Alibi' is a plea, a last ditch effort to get through to someone you already know you're gonna lose. It's a song to myself, to my Father, almost fooling myself because I know what's done is done. But it feels good to beg. A reckoning with time and memory. The song is exhausted with loving someone so much it hurts. Addiction separates us. With memories of the Lower East Side in the early 2000s of my childhood, mixed with imagery of the endless West that calls to artists and wanderers."
The follow-up to their acclaimed Nonesuch debut, LIFE ON EARTH—which landed on Best of 2022 lists from the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Mojo, Uncut, among others—The Past Is Still Alive sees Hurray for the Riff Raff reunite with Brad Cook, while further expanding their creative cast of collaborators. Anjimile, Conor Oberst, and S.G. Goodman all join Alynda Segarra on vocals at various points throughout the LP, with a band of musicians including Cook, Libby Rodenbough, Matt Douglas, Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, Mike Mogis, Phil Cook and Yan Westerlund. Mike Mogis also mixed the album, and it was mastered by Heba Kadry.
The "nature punk" of Life on Earth marked a departure for Hurray for the Riff Raff, as they contemplated surviving and thriving amidst a world in crisis. The Past Is Still Alive brings the focus back inwards, with arrangements that are raw, melodies direct and indelible, and lyrics that are personal yet largely rooted in family and community. There are love songs to real characters, locations and mythic figures like Sky Red Hawk ("Buffalo"), the first trans woman Segarra ever met ("Hawkmoon"), queerness and sacred spaces for outsiders and the vulnerable, in the aftermath of the Club Q shooting ("Colossus of Roads"), leaving home behind and discovering oneself on the edge of the world ("Snake Plant"), short-lived romances and the wisdom gained through chaos ("Vetiver"). Elsewhere, in the self-portraits painted on "Alibi," "Ogallala" and other album highlights, Segarra reflects on the land they have traveled, the hardships witnessed and bravery gained while running away from everything and everyone they knew at age seventeen, hopping freight trains and hitchhiking across the country with a band of street urchins.
In recent months, Hurray for the Riff Raff debuted a stage adaptation of their beloved 2017 album, The Navigator, based on their quest to reclaim their Puerto Rican identity. They also toured with Bright Eyes and First Aid Kit, performed for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR Music's 15th Anniversary Concert, played festivals like Pitchfork and more. Next spring, they will bring the music of The Past Is Still Alive on the road, for a headline tour across the US and Europe, including Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg on March 5, LA's Belasco on April 5, and London's Electric Brixton on May 17, plus Big Ears Festival and dozens of other stops. Hurray for the Riff Raff has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 per ticket goes to supporting This Must Be the Place and their work to distribute Naloxone—the lifesaving medicine that reverses an overdose, and will be available for free at every Hurray for the Riff Raff tour stop. Find the full list below, available starting with an artist presale at 11am ET today, and a general onsale at 10am local time this Friday, November 10.
HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF ON TOUR:
Nov 12 Brooklyn Folk Festival Brooklyn, NY
Feb 25 Tipitina's New Orleans, LA
Feb 27 Masquerade Atlanta, GA
Feb 28 Motorco Durham, NC
Feb 29 Atlantis Washington, DC
Mar 1 Foundry Philadelphia, PA
Mar 3 Levon Helm Studios Woodstock, NY
Mar 5 Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
Mar 6 The Sinclair Cambridge, MA
Mar 9 Higher Ground Burlington, VT
Mar 10 Great Hall Toronto, ON
Mar 12 Skully's Columbus, OH
Mar 14 Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL
Mar 15 Amsterdam Bar & Hall St. Paul, MN
Mar 21-24 Big Ears Festival Knoxville, TN
Mar 28 Aladdin Theater Portland, OR
Mar 29 Neumo's Seattle, WA
Apr 1 August Hall San Francisco, CA
Apr 2 Harlow's Sacramento, CA
Apr 4 Voodoo Room San Diego, CA
Apr 5 Belasco Los Angeles, CA
Apr 6 Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown, CA
Apr 7 Valley Bar Phoenix, AZ
Apr 9 Urban Lounge Salt Lake City, UT
Apr 10 Larimer Lounge Denver, CO
Apr 12 Tulips Fort Worth, TX
Apr 13 3TEN Austin, TX
Apr 14 White Oak Music Hall Houston, TX
May 10 Button Factory Dublin, IRELAND
May 11 Deaf Institute Manchester, UK
May 12 Mono Glasgow, UK
May 14 Brudenell Social Club Leeds, UK
May 15 Castle & Falcon Birmingham, UK
May 16 Strange Brew Bristol, UK
May 17 Electric Brixton London, UK
May 19 La Maroquinerie Paris, FRANCE
May 20 Botanique Brussels, BELGIUM
May 21 Tolhuistuin Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS
May 23 Privatclub Berlin, GERMANY
