Retail Drugs Announces 'Factory Reset,' 2nd Album of 2025 Out December 5th via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk, & Unveils Lead Single/Video "Anti-Lonely"

Today, Retail Drugs — the NYC recording project of musician Jake Brooks — announces their new album, Factory Reset, out December 5th via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk, and presents its lead single/video, “Anti-Lonely.” Factory Reset marks Retail Drugs’ second album of 2025, following the b-sides and demos collection rECKless dRIVing released earlier this summer, and comes a little more than a year after the band’s underground debut album i love you so !. Factory Reset takes a stark detour from Brooks’ prior releases, abandoning guitar-forward tape-recorded compositions, and instead doubling down on the experimental electronic impulses scattered throughout Brooks’ prolific discography.

Factory Reset was engineered and mixed by Brooks himself, and was written and recorded in sequential order, with each track responding to the one before it. Lead single “Anti-Lonely” is the first full track to appear on the album, and — in Brooks’ words — “was the catalyst for Factory Reset.” The track bursts into existence with distorted bass and percussion lines, propelled by Brooks’ avant-punk screeches, whispers, and cries. “I was just getting home from my day job, and I was pissed off for some reason,” Brooks says of the track’s creation. “‘Anti-Lonely’ focuses on how it’s hard to follow online trends. The internet is an angel that at the end, rips my vocal chords out of my throat, taking my voice away.”

“Anti-Lonely” is presented alongside a video filmed by longtime Retail Drugs collaborators Josiah and David Martuscello, and edited by Josiah Martuscello. The “Anti-Lonely” music video is a deep-fried reflection on timeline addiction, burnout and contemporary habits.

Where Retail Drugs first releases were centered around Brooks’ guitar and home tape recording set-up, Factory Reset — the band’s true sophomore LP, and third full-length release in the span of 2 years — engages alternative faculties. “I was so sick of writing music on the guitar,” Brooks says of the initial sessions that shaped Factory Reset’s explosive digital soundscape. As for the tape recording once central to his craft? “I ran out of cassette tapes.” The resulting Factory Reset challenges any pre-existing conceptions of Retail Drugs’ music, and simultaneously feels like a natural extension of Brooks’ creative process, which at its core has always been a reflection of his “hatred of genre, and the joy of music.” Brooks often describes his fast and intuitive writing habits as “leisurely” and “a pretty relaxing process,” providing an intriguing juxtaposition to Factory Reset’s urgent and alarming compositions.

For Factory Reset, Brooks tackled the project in sequential order, tracking improvisations straight to Ableton and honing in the compositions over 8 months across 2023 and 2024. Factory Reset’s album artwork, designed by John DeSousa in a batch of artwork options for i love you so !, also served as a guiding light throughout Factory Reset’s creation, with Brooks’ inhabiting the perspective of the artwork’s central figure when writing and recording. “My two rules for this record were to write songs with the green guy in mind, and no guitar.” Across punk inflections, harsh electronics and noise, Factory Reset is a charged redirection. “I felt like the green mountain man wouldn’t fuck with shoegaze,” Brooks explains. Instead, Factory Reset deploys synth sounds and microphone feedback to create a caustic, confrontational statement.

Factory Reset spans 15 tracks divided into two distinct movements. Breaking after “He Hears Us (Reprise)” — which calls back to rECKless dRIVing’s non-single standout track and marks the only composition on Factory Reset to feature guitar — the second half of Factory Reset was led with the album’s title in mind. “The idea for the record name came from my partner Ali [Genevich],” Brooks says. “She said it over beers after a show, and it really fit the vibe of both the album cover and the music.” He continues: “Lyrically, I do mention Factory Reset as this thing you can do to yourself. The songs live in the not-so-far future where you can erase your past self. Which I guess you can kind of do on the internet, sort of.”

Factory Reset eschews the norms of Retail Drugs’ prior writing and recording habits, but it’s in no way a declarative statement of where Brooks sees the project going next. “Retail Drugs is an outlet for me,” he says, continuing, “I suppose I’m just in a perpetual state of recording and making music for it.” For Factory Reset, creating that music largely involved abandoning all things tried and true, but Brooks confesses: “I did some acoustic guitar on ‘He Hears Us (Reprise)’ so I did break the rules. But fuck it rules are meant to be broken.”

Pre-order Factory Reset

Factory Reset Tracklist

1. Welcome To Factory Reset

2. Anti-Lonely

3. Is The Money Right?

4. Tru Luv

5. Outside

6. Black Tie

7. Knifetime

8. He Hears Us (Reprise)

9. Factory Reset Feels So Good!

10. Everybody Knows

11. Demon Town

12. Rhinebeck

13. ‘Gansett

14. Yeah! I’m Dancing

15. Factory Reset Got Me Down

Retail Drugs Tour Dates

• Thu. Nov. 13 - Hamden, CT @ Best Video *
• Fri. Nov. 14 - Boston, MA @ Pasta Planet *
• Sat. Nov. 15 - New York, NY @ Berlin Under A *
• Sun. Nov. 16 - Philadelphia, PA @ Rug Club *
• Mon. Nov. 17 - Albany, NY @ Tummy Rub Records *
• Sat. Dec. 13 - New York, NY @ Alphaville [ALBUM RELEASE SHOW]

* w/ Herr God