In the thirteen years since Mathieu Santos’ first album, Massachusetts 2010, the man seems to have been quite busy. Since 2011, the indie rock group he co-founded, Ra Ra Riot, has released three albums and has recently gone on tour. He has also moved across the country at least three times and even became a father!
Since 2015, though, Santos has been brewing up a second official album and now it looks like he’s finally ready to unleash it onto the world. On October 2, Santos released the first single off his newest album, Fan Fiction. This ten-track collection of accrued musical stylings has been described by Santos as “cartoon rock,” inspired by his buddy Delicate Steve. He expanded on this idea by explaining, “When you let your guard down, when it’s not clear how you’re supposed to feel about something, that’s when things really start to open up.”
The first single is titled “Cutting up an Ox,” which takes inspiration from a parable by the Taoist sage, Chuang Tzu. Considering the album’s title, one can speculate that the album’s other nine songs will be based on media Santos has an appreciation for. Unfortunately, the album’s tracklist has not yet been released, though a second single is set to release later this month. The album itself will be released on November 11.