ANY HUMAN FRIEND

Vinyl LP pressing. "Hand Solo," "Blow," and "Conventional Ride" are just a few of the cheeky offerings off Any Human Friend, the new album from rock provocateur Marika Hackman. "This whole record is me diving into myself and peeling back the skin further and further, exposing myself in quite a big way. It can be quite sexual," Hackman says. "It's blunt, but not offensive. It's mischievous." There's also depth to her carnal knowledge: Any Human Friend is ultimately about how, as she puts it, "We all have this lightness and darkness in us." "Hand Solo" extorts the virtues of masturbation and features Hackman's favorite line, "Under patriarchal law, I'm going to die a virgin." The song "Blow" paints a picture of social excess. And "Conventional Ride" thumbs its nose at heterosexual sex through "the trope a lot of gay women experience: sleeping with someone, then it becomes apparent you're kind of an experiment." Marika wrote the album over a year, recording a few songs at a time with co-producer David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx).'