FUSILIER ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM AMBUSH ARRIVING 3/28 VIA IS NOT MUSIC

At long last, Brooklyn’s mainstay art rocker Fusilier announces his debut album, Ambush, coming March 28th via IS NOT MUSIC (preorder limited “Tout Est Gore” vinyl on Fusilier’s Bandcamp). Heralding the announcement is a video for “Nightmare Muscle,” a biting auto-biography on the narrowing walls of ambition, delivered through the golden age of ‘90s alternative and pop-punk in all its rapped verse and screamed chorus glory. The single follows last month’s “Birds,” his first solo offering since 2022’s Treason. “Nightmare Muscle” features guitar from friend Bartees Strange as well as Chris Connors on the rhythm section. 

“It takes a special kind of strength not to waste away into nothing given the horrors of the world and the horrors of our aging bodies and minds,” says Fusilier of the track. On “Nightmare Muscle,” bright and catchy melodies deliver some heavy truths — reality goes down better when draped in delusion. Guitars, kicks and snare drums punch the listener down while Fusilier’s wailing tenor imprints some important life lessons. It’s the effect of traipsing forward one step at a time, weighed down by the absurdities of modern life.

The video portrays a game of cat and mouse through the streets of New York, Fusilier playing the role of mouse and the viewer that of the cat, so it seems. Just as you think you’ve caught him, Fusilier slips through your fingers. No matter how close the goal becomes, it always eludes for no reason other than to simply remind you of the unfairness of existence.

For Fusilier, Ambush is his maternal guide to fighting and loving in the shadow of defeat, its title taken from his mother’s maiden name as much as the act of surprise. For the listener, Ambush is a ferocious whirlwind of polyrhythms, cutting lyricism, classical motifs, distorted riffs, and soaring vocals that document a journey for self-love and humanity in the face of indignity and commodification. Throughout, Fusilier triangulates influences of dance music, turn of the century rock, and southern hip-hop to produce a sound that’s as politically urgent as it is singularly fun.  Now, after years of percolating in the indie scene working with Pegg and RIBS alongside  Bartees Strange and Teeny Lieberson, Blake Fusilier emerges as a formidable musician, songwriter, and performer in his own right.

“When I started Ambush I thought it was something I was doing—bombarding the world with a bunch of world-changing songs,” Fusilier says with a laugh. “The more I thought about it and fleshed it out, the more I realized that it was something being done to me everyday, from seemingly innocent advertisements to full-on macro aggressions.” It’s this fascination with a sense of safety—both real and imagined—that allows Fusilier to create songs that are fortified like a shield. On the shuffling and harrowing “U N I NO,” Fusilier rattles off all the places he is defenseless as a Black person in America (“in the comfort of a home… on the open country road… unless you sound what they wanna see… on our back or on our knees”) before leading us to his most explicitly optimistic and earnest lyric: “The future’s an open road / But don’t go alone.”Ambush’s lone ballad “Satellites” revels in the vulnerability of loving openly, with Fusilier’s silvery falsetto delivering “I lived my life as a code— / never let anyone close / So you can imagine the shame of needing your face everyday” somewhere between a plea and a whisper.

Ambush is Fusilier’s most collaborative project to date, with many folks contributing to production and performance, including Carlos Hernandez (Carlos Truly), Teeny Lieberson(Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory), and Vishal Nayak (Nick Hakim). While the album was created in “so many places by so many people,” Fusilier credits studio time with Bartees Strange in DC as the catalyst for turning this collection of songs into such a cohesive, potent statement. Ambush puts Fusilier comfortably alongside Yves Tumor, Perfume Genius, and Model/Actriz as a distinctive voice in adventurous pop music. He may have been ambushed, but trust Fusilier is finally free. Ambush is his way of letting you know.

Fusilier Ambush (IS NOT MUSIC)

Tracklist

1. Ambush

2. …popstar

3. LLC

4. Nightmare Muscle

5. Birds

6. …clingingtofutureglory

7. NSA

8. Satellites

9. …itstoobad

10. U N I NO

11. Hello

 

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