VIA PRESS RELEASE | Independent Project Records (IPR) announced that they are releasing the posthumous, final solo album from Jeffrey Runnings, Piqued, on Friday July 11 on vinyl, CD and digital formats. All formats will include four bonus tracks of rare recordings from the late ’80s. Pre-save and pre-order the album HERE.
The first single from Piqued, “Batman Forever,” is out today on all streaming services. Runnings was the creative force and guiding light behind Nebraska post-punk pioneers For Against. Runnings died on Monday, March 3 due to stage 4 cancer as reported in Pitchfork.
Some forty years after a fan letter from Nebraska resulted in Independent Project Records commencing a decades-long collaboration with post-punk cult favorites turned dream pop visionaries For Against, Piqued is the last album from For Against’s chief songwriter, lead singer, bass player, and only constant member, Jeffrey Runnings.
Piqued is a celebration of the artist’s lifelong quest for a sound that, stripped to the bones, is all the more powerful and cathartic for its restraint. Recorded by Runnings at home on an old 8-track cassette machine, the album plays just like a late ‘80s mixtape, lovingly compiled to showcase the beautiful emptiness of post-punk’s more eloquently quiet peaks.
The favorites of a lifetime—from Section 25 to The Comsat Angels, from Young Marble Giants to early 4AD singles—are all conjured in Runnings’ final songs. Stark and deadpan on the surface, this is electric guitar music in its most human and vulnerable form.
Piqued is available on vinyl (black or transparent magenta), special edition CD, and digital, and comes with a 4-track EP of rare recordings from the late ‘80s—two of them previously unreleased. This bonus EP comes on Clear Silver 12’’ for the vinyl edition and as bonus tracks on the CD.
