New Jersey jazz-punk group Joy on Fire have released their new single “Selfies” yesterday.

The single, which is out on digital services right now, arrives with a music video co-directed by Gabriela Bulisova & Mark Isaac. Guitarist John Paul Carillo said this about the new song:

"Selfies" began with a riff I had hanging around for a while, a riff that has a bit of a Stooges vibe, especially with the reverse delay on it, and when lyricist / vocalist Dan Gutstein joined Joy on Fire, I arranged it for vocals. Dan has some great lines in it, displaying his edgy sense of humor: "Happiest," goes the refrain, "we were happiest / Lying to each other." The piece is a critique of narcissistic culture, with "Love is like gazing everywhere / Catching an echo with your hands...Why not, why not, why not selfies!" The impossibility, emptiness, and sadness of trying to catch an "echo with your hands" is (not) relieved by taking selfies, would be one interpretation. Often in Joy on Fire songs, saxophonist Anna Meadors begins the song or at least jumps in pretty quickly. This time, she lays out for the body of the song, and then just kills it over a vamp that drives to the end of the tune, with Dan then sneaking back in, like the sax has driven him mad: "La-la-la-la-la Selfies!" The wild saxophone is a further Stooges connection. The acidy vibe that Iggy Pop asked for from Stooges saxophonist Steve Mackay -- Anna certainly has it here, and then some"

States of America, which will be released on June 11 via Procrastination Records, follows the band’s 2021 releases Another Adventure in Red and Unknown Cities. The forthcoming album was co-produced by band members Carillo and Meadors.