Getting Into Knives is the nineteenth studio album by indie folk band the Mountain Goats, released on October 23, 2020, through Merge Records. The album was recorded in March 2020 over six days at Sam Philips Recording in Memphis, in the same room where psychobilly band the Cramps tracked their 1980 debut album Songs the Lord Taught Us. Getting Into Knives was produced, engineered, and mixed by Matt Ross-Spang, who previously engineered In League with Dragons (2019). In addition to being available on streaming and download services, the album also saw physical release on CD, vinyl, and cassette.
The lead single, "As Many Candles as Possible", was released on August 11, 2020, along with a lyric video directed by Lalitree Darnielle. The song features organist Charles Hodges. "Get Famous" was released on September 14, 2020 and the music video, featuring the band as bobbleheads, was released on October 1, 2020. The final single "Picture of My Dress" was released on October 12, 2020.
Track listing
Album and track metadata and details adapted from Bandcamp.
Personnel
The Mountain Goats
John Darnielle – vocals, guitars, piano
Peter Hughes – electric bass, upright bass
Matt Douglas – keyboards, woodwinds, guitars, accordion, backing vocals
Jon Wurster – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
Bram Gielen – piano, guitars, keyboards
Chris Boerner – guitars
Charles Hodges – Hammond B-3
Sam Shoup – Mellotron
Tom Clary – horns
Reba Russell – backing vocals
Susan Marshall – backing vocals
Production
Matt Ross-Spang – production, engineering, mixing
Brent Lambert – mastering (The Kitchen Mastering, Carrboro, North Carolina) Daniel Murphy – design Wesley Graham – assistant Matt Denham – studio attaché Ryan Matteson – assistant