Today, The Slaps — “the burgeoning post-rock group” (Line Of Best Fit) comprised of guitarist Rand Kelly, bassist Ramsey Bell, and drummer Josh Resing — share Mud Tracks, a new EP of knotted ambience and uncanny soundscapes. It’s the follow-up to 2024’s Mudglimmer, an “adventurous” (Stereogum) record that presented a collision of spontaneous composition and earnest, threadbare folk. Listen to & save Mud Tracks EP here.

Today’s focus track is “I Am Mud,” a track that wanders with purpose and encapsulates the thesis of the EP. It was “the jumping off point for the idea of a companion EP to Mudglimmer,” the band says. “We thought it would be interesting to showcase this appendix to our songwriting process and highlight another side of the band.” 

The Slaps further explain: “‘I Am Mud’ is a track that evolved out of one of the original versions of our song Mudglimmer. For the first year plus of the songs life it was more of a drone based raga. Ramsey would play samples of a shruti box and a bowed electric bass under Rand’s drony guitar parts. The vocals were much more chant like. The song really felt like some weird prayer. Often by the end of the song it would disintegrate into something more or less resembling ‘I Am Mud.’ “

Among the track on the EP lies a standout in “Bunny (Sam Prekop Remix),” a re-work of the Mudglimmer highlight concocted by none other than Chicago legend Sam Prekop, known for his exceptional work as a solo artist and as part of The Sea and Cake.

Both strange and beautiful, Mudglimmer finds the group emerging from the specter of indie oblivion with a raw, expressive, and idiosyncratic sound. It’s a stunning DIY comeback story, a doubling-down on avant-garde impulses that pays immediate dividends. Faced with professional and personal hurdles that threatened the band’s continuation, The Slaps dug deep into improvisation (even recording an EP at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, a hub of the city’s rich free jazz scene and home of the Sun Ra / El Saturn Collection) and traditional country songwriting.

It’s a record that finds The Slaps reconfigured and reenergized — finding purpose in becoming fully, unashamedly, their own wonderfully confounding thing.

Listen to Mudglimmer here.
Read more about The Slaps and Mudglimmer here.

The Slaps are touring behind Mudglimmer through the spring, including shows with Hemlock and Sarah and the Sundays. Full dates are below.