Acclaimed musician Twin Shadow announces his seventh studio album Cadet, which arrives on November 20 via Dom Recs, alongside his new single, “Half Asleep.”
“Half Asleep” dives into the feeling of finding comfort in romanticized memories of a relationship; the lyric video flashes through nostalgic dreamscapes, pulling us into a world where an ideal version of a relationship still exists.
“”Half Asleep” is about the one that got away—we all have one, or two, or more. It’s one of those songs where memory takes the wheel, and maybe those memories are more vivid and romantic than the reality ever was. Who’s to say? The moments are gone, but the desire to reach out remains—to see who they’ve become.
Even in our digital era, where no one is ever truly out of sight/out of mind, we still crave that connection. It’s a way of understanding who we are now by revisiting who we were then. The song is heavily inspired by one of my favorite bands, The Blue Nile, who have always captured that feeling so perfectly.” –Twin Shadow
The arrival of Cadet comes shortly after Twin Shadow’s intimate sixth album, Georgie, which was released in March of this year. Dedicated to his late father, Georgie explores themes of grief, memory, and introspection through stripped-back and dreamy instrumentation. Cadet sees Twin Shadow back in his drum machine bag with punchy drumbeats and heated warping synthesizers. Of the album, he shares:
“Cadet isn’t a remix record. I wanted to move past that word. Too often, “remix” just means a quick club version or a money grab. At best, it can mean those incredible edits we get every once in a while, which modernize something classic. What I wanted was to start fresh—flip the mood of Georgie and make it more energetic, more carefree. I worked on it non-stop for about a month, grinding because I was so excited by the idea.
I pulled in people close to me—Blackpaw, Nest Acoustics, my longtime friend Ray Brady, and Little Coyote, who came down the street one day to sing on a track. Hopefully, Cadet feels more than Georgie reimagined. Not an erasure but a modification — the treating my former self as collaborator, my present self as a guide or some sort of architect, builder, or wrecking ball — Hopefully the result is a body of work that argues for ownership as a creative tool, not just a business term.”
