A coruscating guitar solo kicks off an irresistible bop in “Here It Comes,” the first single from Oneida’s 17th full-length, Expensive Air (Joyful Noise Recordings), out July 19, 2024. The track joins Oneida’s wildest, hoariest, psychedelic fuckery with the good-times vibe of garage pop. With an assist on vocals from long-time friend and post-punk mainstay Thalia Zedek, the song embodies Oneida’s loose, improvisatory way of upending song structure. Says Bobby Matador, “That’s a very song-like cut, but the way it starts with Shahin’s guitar riff is so gnarly and beautiful. To me, that encapsulates the record, the way it merges the melodic aspects with a dark psychedelic approach.”

A song is a song until it isn’t, until it’s pushed to its limits and beyond to become harder, faster, and more dissonant. The music on Oneida’s Expensive Air all started as tightly structured, melodic rock songs—very much in line with the non-stop bangers of Success from 2022—but along the way, they changed.

Bobby Matador sketched the structures of these songs from his home base in Boston, then sent the demos to Oneida’s New York contingent: Kid Millions, Hanoi Jane, Shahin Motia and Barry London. “We were working out the songs in New York without Bobby. We would start out riding the riffs, and then Shahin and Jane would add wild, out-of-key guitar harmonies,” said Kid Millions. “It seemed so perfect.”

Oneida has long straddled gray-area boundaries between the NYC punk/psych/rock world and the art/experimental world, playing at gritty rock clubs and elevated cultural institutions, including the Guggenheim, MoMA PS1, ICA London, MassMOCA and the Knoxville Museum of Art. The band has been known for extended live improvisational performances, collaborating onstage with Mike Watt, members of Flaming Lips, Portishead, Boredoms, Yo La Tengo, Dead C, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and many others. Oneida’s members juggle a wide variety of other music projects. Drummer Kid Millions has played with Spiritualized, Royal Trux and Boredoms and releases solo compositions under his own name and as Man Forever. Shahin Motia founded noise-punk’s Ex Models and currently plays in Knyfe Hyts. Kid and Fat Bobby perform and release music as People of the North, and Bobby’s outside projects New Pope and Nurse & Soldier each released new albums in 2023.