Having signed to Soulwax’s DEEWEE imprint earlier this year, Canadian DJ and producer Marie Davidson is now readying the release of her sixth studio album, City of Clowns, which drops 28 February.

Inspired by Shoshana Zuboff’s mind-blowing and kind of terrifying non-fiction book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the Pierre Guerineau- and Soulwax-produced album combines inventive club cuts with a fired-up resistance to the creeping influence of Big Tech. In a post to Instagram last month, Davidson said she’s “spent years working on the meaning of the songs, the message and the sound palette.”

Out today, new single “Sexy Clown” follows preview tracks “Y.A.A.M. (Your Asses Are Mine)” and “Contrarian”, and finds Davidson exploring ideas of authenticity and perception. “Most people have a clown inside of them. Some are funny, some are shy, some are twisted, some are dark. The clown is the part of us that is dying to be seen, for better or for worse,” she explains in a press release. “[The album] is definitely linking back to what I was doing pre-pandemic, but with a bit of an evolution,” she adds. “I didn't want to just repeat myself.” 

Watch the video for “Sexy Clown” below, in which Davidson and director Loris Gentile hit the streets and clubs of Milan.

City of Clowns tracklist:

1. Validations Weight
2. Demolition 
3. Sexy Clown
4. Push Me Fuckhead
5. Fun Times
6. Statistical Modelling
7. Y.A.A.M.
8. Contrarian
9. Unknowing

Davidson has a few live shows and DJ sets coming up early next year, with further additional dates planned for the summer.

01/19 Montréal, Canada @ Igloofest *
02/01 Berlin, Germany @ Rough Trade *
02/01 Berlin, Germany @ CTM Festival
02/03 London, UK @ Rough Trade East *
02/05 Prague, Czech Republic @ Fuchs2
02/08 Den Haag, The Netherlands @ Grauzone Festival* 

* DJ set