Sylvan Esso Return With First New Music In Three Years
September 30, 2025 - By Psychic Hotline
Today, Sylvan Esso return with “WDID,” their first new single in more than three years, and the first new song they have released on their own record label, Psychic Hotline. Born from an intense period of creation and experimentation for band members Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, “WDID” is an abrasive, all-caps confrontation against an all-consuming cascade of crises. Whatever it is, it’s happening now and it’s filling our feeds, our brains keep yelling and we keep on checking, as nothing comes out but it keeps coming in. “What do I do when I run out of money,” asks Meath, and the “algorithm only wants my body”?
Recorded at their own studio, Betty’s, thick in the woods of Chapel Hill, NC, with additional production from Jake Luppen (Hippo Campus, Samia). The single arrives with visuals by artists Aaron Anderson and Eric Timothy Carlson, and is not available on Spotify, as Sylvan Esso have made the decision to remove their catalog from the platform.
As a band that has amassed nearly a billion Spotify streams – in addition to earning two GRAMMY® nominations for Best Dance/Electronic Album, releasing four highly acclaimed LPs, collaborating with a wide-ranging community of artists such as Arooj Aftab, Maggie Rogers, Tyler Childers, Reyna Tropical, Califone, Remi Wolf, Moses Sumney, The Postal Service, Rostam and many more, playing arenas like Madison Square Garden and Forest Hills Stadium, performing on every major music festival and television show, and forming “their own niche of electro-pop” (The New York Times) – the choice to take their music off the platform is one that is theirs to make for the first time in their career. On the decision, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn say:
“As we prepare to release new music, we have to decide what we want to be a part of and what we don’t. To that end, with Sylvan Esso being on our own label for the first time, we have decided to remove our music from Spotify. While no solution is perfect, we simply can’t continue to put our life’s work in a store that, in addition to all its other glaring flaws, directly funds war machines.
reaching towards the world we all deserve,
even though we are not in it yet,
a&n”
Like “WDID,” Sylvan Esso’s off-kilter, electrified pop has always spiraled out from a main point of tension, and a push-and-pull of possibility. Meath and Sanborn have spent the past year working on new material with new collaborators, and “WDID” will also be released as a physical 12” single on January 9th, backed by a loose and hypnotic b-side called “KEEP ON,” built from a week of improvisation alongside bassist Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, Dijon) and drummer TJ Maiani (Weyes Blood, Neneh Cherry).
