Phoebe Bridgers releases sophomore album Punisher ahead of schedule

Indie-folk singer Phoebe Bridgers has released her new album Punisher a day ahead of schedule, encouraging fans to donate to organisations geared towards tackling racial justice and police brutality.

“I’m not pushing the record until things go back to ‘normal’ because I don’t think they should,” Bridgers wrote on Twitter.

“Here it is a little early. Abolish the police. Hope you like it.”

Bridgers’ follow-up to 2018's Stranger In The Alps features a number of notable guests, from Conor Oberst and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner to her boygenius comrades Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus.

Bridgers unveiled a new song and video, ‘Kyoto’, in April which found her in scenic Japan via green screen.

The 25-year-old had hoped to film her ‘Kyoto’ video in Japan in March, but was forced to alter her plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, she made the visual with a green screen in Los Angeles.

“This song is about impostor syndrome. About being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, and playing my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I’m living someone else’s life,” Bridgers said in a statement.

The link to the album lead to a host of donation buttons for racial justice organisations, including the Movement for Black Lives, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, the Downtown Women’s Center and the Trevor Project.

Bridgers has been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations on social media, sharing GoFundMe links for the black trans community and information on defunding the police.

Most recently, the singer-songwriter called for the removal of Confederate monuments:

“Usually when people lose they’re embarrassed and don’t build statues to remind everyone forever…look at this shit,” she wrote, referencing a photograph of the Confederate monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Forrest was a Confederate general during the Civil War and was associated with the Ku Klux Klan aftewards.

Bridgers also retweeted a petition to have it removed from its placement in Nashville.

Listen to the gorgeously atmosphere new album Punisher below:

https://open.spotify.com/album/2xECuqnvvmVktV7UO8Dd3s?si=_aaYpb3bRDytvCOz3DXbPQ