Mitski Returns From Hiatus With New Single ‘Working for the Knife’ & 2022 Tour
Published on May 14, 2024
Mitski is back with a new release titled “Working for the Knife,” along with an accompanying music video and a 2022 tour announcement. “Working for the Knife” marks the emotive singer’s re-entry to her personal and poetic landscape after a three-year hiatus after the 2018 release of Be the Cowboy.
Produced by Mitski’s longtime collaborator Patrick Hyland, “Working for the Knife” starts off as a powerful drone-heavy track, softened by Mitski’s lingering vocals and bell-like keys. Carefully woven, “Working for the Knife” is a surreal recounting of the singer’s relationship with the symbolic “knife” that cuts deep and exposes what’s inside.
“It’s about going from being a kid with a dream, to a grown up with a job, and feeling that somewhere along the way you got left behind,” Mitski said of the new song in a statement. “It’s being confronted with a world that doesn’t seem to recognize your humanity and seeing no way out of it.”
The music video features the indie-rock singer at the Egg in Albany, New York, in a cowboy hat that she quickly tosses aside before making her way to the stage where she closes with a wordless, exorcising dance in front of an empty audience.
Mitski’s return to touring kicks off in North America with a Feb. 17 show in Asheville, North Carolina, and continues in the U.K. and EU with dates in April and May.
