Vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of The Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr, has announced a new album “Melodies on Hiatus” after the release of his new single “100-99” featuring GoldLink.
The Line of Best Fit reports that the release of “100-99” – which is Hammond Jr’s first release since the 2022 collaboration with Glass Animals – comes with a music video directed by Angela Ricciardi and Silken Weinberg.
Of the inspiration to work with GoldLink, Hammond Jr says he grew up listening to 90s hip-hop, and would always gravitate towards the melodic hooks in the songs he heard on the radio, specifically anything Dr. Dre was producing or rapping on.
“Years later, I noticed myself pulling from the style of those melodic lines in my guitar work, even though it wasn’t obvious to anyone else as I was so directly associated with being in a rock band. ‘100-99’ was something I’ve wanted to do for some time – work with a rapper over a beat and guitar part I wrote – and it’s really exciting that I was able to do it with GoldLink,” he says
“When we first met with Albert, it was clear we were all on the same page: we wanted to have fun and we wanted to experiment with simple concepts that tell a deeper story,” Ricciardi and Weinberg say about the video. “The five videos we made for Melodies on Hiatus take place in a series of rooms all within one larger space, different scenes that string together one very long night. Throughout the entire process, Albert was so open and kind, he trusted us, and it cultivated a really pure, almost psychedelic environment.”
Melodies On Hiatus – the follow-up to 2020’s Francis Trouble – features contributions from GoldLink, Steve Stevens, Matt Helders and Rainsford, the album was co-written remotely with Simon Wilcox, mixed by Tony Hoffer (Beck, Air, M83, Metric, Chromeo) and mastered by Dave Cooley (Paramore, Spoon, Tame Impala, Jimmy Eat World).
