You may not know the name Anna Butterss, but you’ve probably heard their work. The in-demand bassist has appeared on several Phoebe Bridgers projects – Punisher, Boygenius, Better Oblivion Community Center, The Record – and has a long list of credits besides that - Sasami, Aimee Mann, Ben Harper, and Makaya McCraven, to name just a few.

Two years ago, the Australian-born artist also added solo artist to their bio with their debut album Activities, a record that happened almost by chance. Due out 4 October via International Anthem, their second album Mighty Vertebrate has a very different origin story, constructed with maximum intentionality around songwriting prompts they gave themself, like “confining themself to a three bar phrase, or a bass part that doesn’t serve as a bass part, or drum machine at the driver’s seat.”

New single “Pokemans”, out today, was born from one of those prompts, and is partly inspired by classic 8-bit video game soundtracks and lo-fi 1980s ‘city pop’ from Japan. Watch the video by Tortoise’s John Hendron below:

Mighty Vertebrate is Butterss’ second release of the year, following the June release of Small Medium Large, the debut album by the leaderless free-jazz improv band SML in which they play.