L to R: Lyla Vander (drums), Yukri Morishima (bass), Rahill Jamalifard (lead vocals, synth), Ana Becker (guitar), Lenaya Lynch (guitar, synth, backup vocals)
Photographer Credit: Bailey Robb
April 2, 2024 – Today, Habibi shares “Do You Want Me Now,” the latest single from their new album Dreamachine, which releases May 31 via Kill Rock Stars. A defiant, dancey punk anthem, the track channels Habibi’s rebellious spirit and nods to their garage rock roots, illustrating where they came from and how far they’ve journeyed.
Watch the “Do You Want Me Now” visualizer via YouTube
“‘Do You Want Me Now’ is kind of a punk anthemic ode to finally knowing yourself,” explains lead singer Rahill Jamalifard. “When you finally can stop listening to the voices outside and put away all this expectation and pressure – like caring about what people think and just looking inward. ‘Do You Want Me’ evolves to ‘I actually don’t care if you do.’ No more time or patience for that, I’m old enough and wise enough now, and it’s a liberating feeling.”
“Do You Want Me Now” follows the band’s recent single “On The Road,” which kicks off the Dreamachine journey with the sound of a car engine roaring to life as the band launches into hypnotic loops and off-kilter guitars. FADER named it one of their “Songs You Need In Your Life,” declaring “Ten years on, Habibi’s motion is still fun to behold.”
Co-founded by Detroit natives Rahill Jamalifard and Lenny Lynch, Habibi immediately captured attention for their blistering blend of eras and cultures. The band’s 2014 self-titled debut was praised by The New Yorker for infusing “the Colgate-white glisten of sixties-girl-group pop with an uncensored edge,” while their 2018 follow-up EP Cardamom Garden featured a mix of psych-rock and Iranian folklore (complete with lyrics sung in Farsi), which Pitchfork declared “shed rigid definitions of what constitutes American music.” Their 2020 sophomore full-length, Anywhere But Here, explored darker, more portentous sonic territory, but on Dreamachine Habibi rises above the darkness to arrive at a singular, spellbinding sound they have been chasing for more than a decade.
Named for a spinning work of light art popularized as a creativity aid in the 1960s by beat writers like William S. Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg (and later championed by musicians like David Bowie and Paul McCartney), Dreamachine is a work of sonic transcendence itself. Habibi draws on a mix of post-punk, experimental pop and vintage disco, all filtered through their shared love of Middle Eastern psych music. The result is an alternatingly fierce and joyous work that ascends to new heights as it reckons with desire and escape, love and surrender, rebellion and reality.
Dreamachine was produced by Tyler Love and longtime collaborator Jay Heiselmann, and features MGMT multi-instrumentalist James Richardson.
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