Sling Shot to Heaven, the fifth studio album from Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s, is set for release on Mariel Recordings Company April 22. Esquire is premiering the album’s first single “Hello, San Francisco” and says “Musically, they’ve smoothed out their already polished sound, bridging the gap between their swirling rock roots and grownup dad rock—but more forgiving, with softer edges and less jamming.”
Richard Edwards, songwriter and lead singer for the band, calls the song a worthy representation of the spirit of the record...I got a silly idea in my head that I wanted an album to start with the lines, ‘Hello, San Francisco! Baby, I don’t ever wanna die,’ and it took a while for me to write a halfway decent song around that pre-conceived bit of silliness.”
Sling Shot to Heaven was recorded in the studio that the band built a decade ago with the advance received from their debut album, The Dust of Retreat. The entirety of the new release was recorded on 2” tape and produced by the band. Consistent with their successful approach of self-releasing music since 2008’s Animal! / Not Animal (Epic), Sling Shot to Heaven will be released on the band’s own label, Mariel Recording Company. Edwards’ goal for the band’s fifth album was to “make a record that came across like a sci-fi dream about my decade of touring and making records obsessively while slowly becoming an adult, or at least something vaguely resembling one.”
Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s formed in Indianapolis in 2004 as an umbrella under which a rotating group of friends could come together to record Edwards’ vast array of songs. They still travel in the black United school bus that they bought with that first advance and converted into a mobile home, complete with nine very hard wooden bunks. They remain as prolific as ever, recording an album a year since starting Mariel Recording Company in 2010, as well as releasing three 7”s, an EP, and three vinyl re-issues during the same span of time. The band members currently reside in Chicago and Indianapolis.
