Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog Shares New Song “They Met In The Middle” From New Album 'Hope' Out June 25 via Northern Spy

Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog today shared their new song “They Met In The Middle” from their upcoming album Hope releasing June 25, 2021 via Northern Spy. Alongside the single, Ribot shared the following statement about the track, which features alto saxophone from Darius Jones, and follows up previously released album singles “The Activist” and “B-flat Ontology”:

There are so many ways to go nowhere. Some stay in the same place. Others go in circles. This song is about two people who go different places and then return. Judging by the music, it would seem to be taking place in America, but it's impossible to be certain.

Marc Ribot and his Ceramic Dog trio—bassist/multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith—hadn’t played for months. So, all involved decided to head to Ismaily’s Figure 8 Recording studio in Brooklyn to record what would become Hope. Harnessing pent-up artistic longing, the sessions also yielded enough material for the 2020 EP What I Did On My Long 'Vacation', something of a teaser for this current dispatch. Some of Ribot’s earlier recordings have been more immediately political. His Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 from 2018 was unapologetically agitprop, and Ceramic Dog’s YRU Still Here?, from that same year, spanned the perennially poignant "Muslim Jewish Resistance" and the punky "Fuck La Migra." Even as the bandleader crafted detailed snapshots of pandemic-era life for Hope, the overriding passion that drove Ceramic Dog back into the studio last spring is palpably audible on every track. “We were so happy to be playing, recording, and making music again,” Ribot said. “In future times—if there are future times—when people look back on the last year, they're not going to believe it. But this record was our witness... and our life-line.”