[Cover photo credit to Mark Dalrymple]
The Rock and Post-Punk band American Motors, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, have announced their second album, Functional Music, out the 6th of November, 2026 via three labels: Expert Work (US), The Ghost Is Clear (US) and Vina Records (ITA).
Alongside the news, the band have shared lead single “No Horses” paired with a music video shot on film inside the Large Scale Systems Museum in New Kensington, PA.
Where their debut album Content “built out a world in decay”, Functional Music is “about the people stuck living in it: waitresses, nomads, kids growing up too fast and dosed on catastrophe before they’re old enough to understand it.”
The band are influenced by New Hollywood cinema for the album, like the works of Peckinpah, Easy Rider, and the works of Bogdanovich, and each song written like a scene.
On the new album, Dustin White of the band said:
Making the first record, we established a conceptual framework to work inside of. This time we’re adding more detail inside that framework, and pushing against it slightly. We made some bigger swings in a few spots, but still just did what we do, which is basically whatever Alex and I find interesting. We’re still interested in experimenting with empty space and repetition. Working with J again was an absolute dream, and no band I’ve been in has managed to release a second LP while still continuing to function as a band, so this feels like a major accomplishment. It’s a little more interior to the exterior of the first LP. It’s a society, and we’re just living in it.
Directed and shot by Dustin White himself, the “No Horses” video plays out inside real, working vintage computer terminals and mainframes at the Large Scale Systems Museum, shot on an Arriflex 16ST with expired Kodak Eastman film stock.
White taught himself the camera from scratch for the job, sourcing the second hand gear and shooting test reels to learn it before turning it on the band.
Among the machines featured is a Data General “Dasher” terminal, the same model used as the visual template for the computers in Apple TV’s “Severance,” alongside genuine period hardware including a VAX-11/780 and an IBM System/390 mainframe.
Speaking on the video, Dustin continues:
‘No Horses’ takes place mostly out on Route 60 just outside St Albans, WV, the same stretch that ‘(A Billboard Reading) Dissolve Jefferson’ from our first LP does. As a band, one of our favorite things to do is have either the guitar or bass play essentially one note while the other moves around. Here we do both. For the video, we were lucky enough to shoot at the Large Scale Systems Museum, just outside Pittsburgh. Everybody should go here and touch these machines; they want you to. To keep with the antiquated technology vibe, we shot the whole thing on a 1960s Arriflex 16ST 16mm camera. I’m honestly surprised we pulled it off.
American Motors will also be heading out on the road this October, joining Jonah Matranga’s onelinedrawing, the long-running project of the former Far frontman, who will be touring his album Tin Cans With Strings to You in its entirety for its 30th anniversary.
American Motors live:
22 October – Boston, MA @ Rockwell – Tickets *
23 October – Syracuse, NY @ Funky Town Comics & Vinyl – Tickets *
24 October – Long Island, NY @ Massapequa VFW Hall –Tickets with dearly departed *
25 October – Rutherford, NJ @ Williams Center – Tickets with soft no *
26 October – Baltimore, MD @ Metro – Tickets with Knub *
28 October – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie – Tickets with dear forgiven *
* = supporting onelinedrawing
