Speedy Ortiz frontperson Sadie Dupuis has been recording solo music as Sad13 for over a decade, though lately that project has been on hold. Now, she’s ready to make her grand return with a new mixtape, 1331, and has shared its opening three songs. Listen to “I Am Now Completely Invisible,” “Art Institute,” and “Watermelon Manicure” below. 1331 is out July 10 via Exploding in Sound.
1331 was primarily written two years ago during a “mini nervous breakdown” Dupuis experienced. After the therapeutic but intense subject matter of Speedy Ortiz’s 2023 album, Rabbit Rabbit, and the self-reckoning of her past that preceded it with Sad13’s 2020 release, Haunted Painting, she wanted to lift some of that pressure by writing songs each day that were one minute in length. As that challenge unfolded, the lyrical focus shifted from her personal struggles to the broader experiences of her community in Philadelphia.
Elaborating on the mixtape’s title, Dupuis explains, “1331 signifies palindromes, mirrors, warped balance. It’s a mash-up of two ages in the lyrics. The first, as in my alias ‘sad thirteen,’ represents teenage moodiness, while thirty-one bookmarks young adulthood, which brought me more radical clarity.”
As usual, Dupuis handles all of the instrumentation herself on the mixtape, from three different types of guitars (electric, baritone, and acoustic) to organ, bass, drum programming, and beyond. Tracking 1331, however, was the hard part. In June 2024, Dupuis was injured in a bicycle accident that shattered her elbow and required both reconstructive surgeries and a year of rehab. “My body didn’t have the juice,” she said. “But tracking in little bursts over more time gave me broader influences.”
Revisit Dupuis’ interview in the feature The Chorus of #MeToo, and the Women Who Turned Trauma Into Songs.
