Today, PVRIS has just released their first new song of the year — a powerhouse all-female team up with Canadian rapper Tommy Genesis and experimental DJ/producer/singer Alice Longyu-Gao for a new song “Burn the Witch.”
The sinister track proves to be a lethal combination of the three collaborator, pushing PVRIS’ signature production flair to new levels. In addition to being the first release from PVRIS for 2024, it also serves as the lead single from their upcoming project, which is due out this spring via Hopeless Records.
Lyndsey Gunnulfsen of PVRIS shares of the track, “I’ve been a huge fan of both Tommy and Alice for quite a while so it was an absolute dream to not only have them on a track together but to also get to be crafting the production around their parts”
On the project, Gunnulfsen flexes full authority, with “Burn The Witch” marking her first fully self-produced release, a feat she has been working towards over PVRIS’s entire decade-long career.
Listen to “Burn the Witch” below.
In addition to featuring a handpicked curation of genre-bending female artists on this upcoming release, the project initiative continues structurally, with exclusively hiring female writers, mixing engineers and mastering engineers to be a part of the music from start to finish. For Gunnulfsen, this pledge encompasses female, female-identifying, trans, and non-binary musicians.
“At its core, I just wanted to make a fun project full of some bad bitches in music that I love and create a space where we can express whatever we want and get to experiment sonically. I didn’t want to be overly precious about it, I just want to have fun and free flow!” But this has a deeper intention at its core. Speaking on a decade in the industry, “It should be noted that while there are already so many iconic and incredible female producers, writers, engineers etc. out there (I’m no trailblazer here), but there is nowhere near the amount that there should be. This isn’t even something to debate, go look at the statistics.
“I think I’ve truly been in hundreds of writing/producing sessions at this point in my career and I can recall less than 20 of those that were with female writers and around 10 that were with female producers. From labels and publishers to management, there is so little advocacy to get artists into rooms with women in general. It’s even rarer to see the same advocacy towards connecting and putting only women in a room together, especially without it being made into a commodity, “special event” or task to check off. These collaborations should be happening organically regardless of who is watching.
“I don’t really understand what everyone is so scared of? That we’ll all have too much fun together? It’s all I’ve experienced in this chapter (of working almost exclusively with women); just pure fun. I feel like a kid again and this is the least stressed I’ve felt making music and I really hope I can be a small part in helping to facilitate those same feelings outward for the other artists I’m bringing onto this project and working with in general. I don’t want this to be the only “volume” of this project, there’s too many bad bitches in all music making roles out there to cover in just one release like this. This is something I’d love to continue and grow in.”
Regarding the recording process, she further explains, “The track was produced and recorded around the world while on tour and in between tours at the end of last year. I started the track for fun in a coffee shop in Ashland Oregon on an off-day on the Godless/Goddess tour (where I met Tommy Genesis). Started working on some of the parts with Kanner at my home studio in LA before leaving for tour. Soon after, amidst travels, I worked on completing it in various locations including the tour bus. I sneakily recorded some of the live drums for the track during our breaks at rehearsals in London, connecting some of our live-show drum mics to my interface and creating loops for certain sections. Soon after that, Tommy and Alice sent their parts virtually and I worked on piecing everyone’s parts together while we were finishing up on tour in Europe. I set up a little travel studio in Bath (UK) and Sydney AUS to get that done and track a few other remaining parts. This track was finished on my parents couch the night I flew in for the holidays. I feel so grateful that Hopeless and the PVRIS team were so supportive of this project.”
