Not heard from in seven years, Twin Cities indie-pop duo has suddenly emerged again.
Childhood pals KC Dalager and Brad Hale — who made it to the late-night TV circuit and hit the road with Paramore as Now, Now in the mid-2010s — have dropped a new EP, “01,” their first new music since the 2018 album “Saved.” The four-song collection hit Bandcamp and streaming apps Wednesday without advanced warning.
“We aren’t the type of band that can just churn things out for the sake of churning them out,” Hale said in a statement explaining the wait for the new EP. “We really have to be in a very specific place to start making new music.”
They apparently got to that place after working on numerous other projects. Dalager issued a solo album in 2023, “Think I’m Gonna Die.” The singer and Hale also have been heavily involved in writing and producing with their Minnesota homie Ber for her series of recent EPs. On the side, Dalager also became a sound meditation practitioner, and Hale got more into audio mixing as well as graphic design for other artists.
The duo reconvened as Now, Now in Hale’s basement studio in Minneapolis and touched on various ends of the group’s old sounds, from the jangly opening track “Talk to God” — offering echoes of Death Cab for Cutie, whose ex-guitarist Chris Walla signed the duo to his label Trans Records in the early 2010s) — to the more digi-poppy, Sylvan Esso-like songs “Isn’t It Funny” and “About You.”
So far, the EP is the only thing on the Now, Now docket. No live shows are on the calendar at the moment. Here’s hoping this is the beginning of a new beginning of an old friendship.
