Lina Tullgren Releases Plush, String-Heavy Single “Bad At Parties”

Queens-based songwriter Lina Tullgren has unveiled the second single from their forthcoming sophomore LP Free Cell, the pensive and string heavy “Bad At Parties.”

“Bad At Parties” is a quiet moment of social paralysis sweetened by violins and dark electric strumming. Though less chilling than Tullgren’s previous single, the track is cut from the same cloth, finding Tullgren moving over a plush string arrangement to evoke familiar feelings of uneasy solitude: “Went to a party / I just sit on the backstairs / It isn’t what you thought it’d be / What is in there that you see? / Golden me, I could be free.”

The single is accompanied by a stunning visual from longtime collaborator Ty Ueda, who explains:

[It’s] an adaptation of an old studio practice of mine that involved making visual haikus: short films comprised of three simple actions or movements. In this case they were escape, movement, and burial of a symbolic object. Nearly every object, action, and place in the video carries a pretty direct and sometimes heavy memory for either Lina, myself, or a part of our partnership. It feels a little tedious to break every bit of it down, but it’s kind of a fun iSpy for anybody who knows the two of us and our career together really well.

Free Cell is set to arrive on Aug. 23 via Captured Tracks, and you can revisit the album details and Tullgren’s upcoming tour dates here.

Check out the single below.