Mike Watt Lines Up Thresher Album and Casa Sueño Tour

Mike Watt’s year has not slowed down. After a split release with J Mascis in which the two covered each other’s bands, the Minutemen cofounder now has two more projects taking shape in the same month.

First, Beekeeper, his collaborative album with Ontario experimental noise rock band Thresher, is out September 10 via OwnSound Recordings. The songs “Sip Of The Sweetness” and “The Bee Dance” are already available, and they extend Watt’s long-running commitment to working outside familiar structures.

Almost in parallel, Mike Baggetta has announced Casa Sueño, a trio with Watt and drummer John Herndon of Tortoise. Watt and Baggetta previously played together in mssv; this new group starts a run of dates on September 17 in San Pedro, California, moving through the Southwest, Tijuana, and up the coast to Vancouver before closing October 10 at Zebulon in Los Angeles. A lead single is still to come.

That schedule follows another Watt project, Big Circle, which released a self-titled EP in July. Earlier in the year, he also looked back at his Minutemen history in a profile for The New York Times. Rather than trading on legacy, Watt keeps entering new collaborations with the same restless attention that defined his early work.