Cadence Weapon (Rollie Pemberton) has announced a new album, ROLLERCOASTER, which will be out April 19 via MNRK Music. It’s the follow-up to his 2021 Polaris Prize-winning Parallel World, and for it he enlisted a group of likeminded Canadians and “fellow Black weirdos” to produce and collaborate, including Bartees Strange, Loraine James, Austra, Jacques Greene, Machinedrum, Grandtheft, and more.

ROLLERCOASTER‘s lyrical themes in particular explore our internet-and-screen-obsessed lives. “I was observing parallels between the fraudulence of certain institutions and the fake news of the internet,” Pemberton explains. “With bots and people being willfully false for profit, the internet has led to a total obfuscation of reality.”

The first single from the album is “Press Eject,” which was produced by Grandtheft. “I wanted to write an anthem for people who are fed up with the way the Internet has become,” Pemberton says. “I want to remind people that there are platforms that have come and gone, because they’re vulnerable if we aren’t on them. I’m encouraging everyone to be more empowered and thoughtful about how we engage with social media. Maybe we can create a better situation for ourselves.” Watch the video below.

Cadence Weapon will be on tour this spring, including a Brooklyn show at Elsewhere Zone One on May 3. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 9 at 10 AM and all dates are listed below.

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ROLLERCOASTER
1. Cadence £∞™.mp3 (prod. by Bartees Strange)
2. Press Eject (prod. by Grandtheft)
3. Exceptional (prod. by Jacques Greene)
4. My Computer (prod. by Machinedrum)
5. Blue Screen (prod. by Cecile Believe)
6. Lexicon (prod. by Martyn Bootyspoon)
7. YASTM.m4a (prod. by Bartees Strange)
8. EFT (prod. by Loraine James)
9. Bots (prod. by Taydex and Wesley Singerman)
10. Sting (prod. by Jacques Greene)
11. Shadowbanned (feat. myst milano) (prod. by Taydex and Wesley Singerman)
12. You Are Special To Me (feat. Bartees Strange) (prod. by Bartees Strange)
13. Alarms (feat. Austra) (prod. by Casey MQ)
14. tl;dr (prod. by Harrison)

Cadence Weapon Tour Dates:
Fri. Mar. 1 – San Francisco, CA @ Noise Pop
Fri. Apr. 19 – Hamilton, ON @ Brideworks
Sat. Apr. 20 – Toronto, ON @ TD Music Hall
Wed. May 1 – Quebec City, QC @ Pantoum
Thu. May 2 – Montreal, QC @ Ausgang Plaza
Fri. May 3 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Zone One
Wed. May 15 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
Thu. May 16 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza