Warpaint have spent years refining a sound anchored in patient builds, vocal harmonies, and interlocking rhythm work that tends to take on a very different character when brought in front of an audience. That live presence is now getting a formal document in ARTIFACT, a sixteen-song concert album due out on December 11th via Rough Trade Records.
The recordings were captured between 2022 and 2024, a touring window that put the band in an unusual creative position on stage. During that run, they were out supporting their most recent full-length studio album, Radiate Like This, while simultaneously playing dates to mark the fifteenth anniversary of their debut EP, Exquisite Corpse. Touring behind fresh material while revisiting the very first release that established their name meant that songs separated by more than a decade of writing and recording were suddenly sharing the same stage on a nightly basis.
That contrast is on clear display in the two preview selections released alongside the announcement, Billie Holiday and New Song. The two tracks represent radically different points on the band's timeline. Billie Holiday dates all the way back to Exquisite Corpse, built on quiet pacing, vocal focus, and early minimalism. New Song came much later in their career, written with an upfront, driving rhythm and immediate melodic punch. Setting them side by side gives listeners a preview of how Warpaint manage the space between their stripped-back beginnings and their more direct, groove-heavy material.
A multi-year live collection also provides a window into how an older catalog shifts under the demands of ongoing performance. Songs conceived for intimate spaces often undergo natural adjustments in volume, pace, and texture as they transition into theater bills and festival sets. Hearing selections from Exquisite Corpse played in the company of pieces from Radiate Like This reveals how the band has reshaped their earliest arrangements to live comfortably beside their newer output.
ARTIFACT is available for pre-order now ahead of its arrival in mid-December. Spanning sixteen tracks recorded across those two touring years, the album pulls together a clear record of where Warpaint have spent their stage hours recently, charting the territory between their beginnings and their latest work.
