Mei Semones has released “2 Hands”, the second single from Howl, her forthcoming second album. The record is due on January 15, 2027 through Verve/Interscope. Its latest song brings a new instrument into the band’s percussion palette: drummer Ransom McCafferty plays tabla.

Mei Semones in a Howl publicity portrait.
Mei Semones. Photo: Saeka Shimada / Howl publicity.

The single follows the title track and arrives with a video directed by Jacob Rodier. Filmed in the Bronx, it features Semones with the musicians she regularly plays alongside: McCafferty, viola player Noah Leong, violinist Claudius Agrippa and bassist Noam Tanzer. The song concerns her commitment to making music, with lyrics in Japanese and English.

What the band credits help explain

Tabla adds a specific percussion voice; it does not mean that Semones has replaced her whole band. The announced ensemble still puts her guitar and singing beside bass, drums, violin and viola. Naming those parts is more useful than calling the track “orchestral”, which could suggest a much larger set of players than the credits describe.

There is another arrangement on the album to put beside it. The public description of “Towards Manhattan” specifies guitar, vocals, violin and viola. That is a reduced combination compared with the fuller ensemble around “2 Hands”. The credits show two ways of setting a song: adding a percussion instrument on one track and leaving more space for the strings on another.

Howl contains eleven tracks. The title song opens it, “2 Hands” appears third, and “Towards Manhattan” sits sixth. “Kira Kira” closes the sequence. Those positions give the two singles a place within a longer record, while leaving most of its running order still ahead for listeners to discover in January.

The album credits name Semones and Jess Camilleri as producers, with Camilleri also responsible for the mix. Recording took place at Power Station in Manhattan and Studio G in Brooklyn. The band members appearing in the video therefore have a counterpart in the published record credits; the clip presents the people involved in the music, rather than a newly assembled cast standing in for them.

Some readers will have encountered Semones through her three guest credits on Panchiko’s forthcoming Chimera. Howl is her own album, with a different band and release schedule. Following both announcements means keeping a solo catalogue and a collaboration separate, even when the same musician connects them.

The announced North American headline tour begins on February 24 at The Sinclair in the Boston area. That leaves forty days between the album’s release and the opening show. New York’s Webster Hall follows on March 6, with another stretch beginning in Washington, DC on April 9. The album will be available before those dates, giving audiences time with the complete sequence instead of only the two advance singles.