Dan Knishkowy, the creative stamina behind the New York project Adeline Hotel, recently announced the project’s return with his new record Watch the Sunflowers out October 24th via Ruination Records. Today, the ugly hug is premiering the second single “Just Like You”, a stunning display of attachment and self-agency in the face of a deeply rooted patterns.

“Dog tooth violence, rare blood run. Where’s my wild rose? Where will I become,” Knishkowy begins, his words linger like footsteps in an empty hallway, each step more and more pronounced as the direction and distance becomes more clear. As the track falls into its groove, ruminating in varying textures of strings and rich colors of instrumental shadows, a defiant guitar solo breaks through, dripping with distortion and unaligned with any classic structure, as “Just Like You” becomes a dynamic exchange, a transfer of self as Knishkowy pulls from this deep need to disengage with what he knows best. It’s a song that grapples with the ghosts that we have yet to become acquainted with, but Knishkowy’s writing has always held an edge to perspective, animating their presence with both curiosity and foretold hindsight when the moment comes to look those ghosts in the eyes. And in classic Adeline Hotel commotion, he shakes out the dust of folkloric expectations as the fluent instrumentation, the crack of the drums and the weightless harmonies begin to pack up their belongings and make their way to the door. 

About the single, Knishkowy shares, “We started Sunflowers and left it unfinished for years. On returning, we felt inspired to totally reimagine it, ripping it apart to its bones and rebuilding it into a kaleidoscopic experience. We very much took the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot approach of ‘well, we made it, so we can also destroy it if we want to.’

The song itself mirrors that process, taking a hard look at ingrained patterning and the attempt to grow beyond that. Whether inherited generational trauma (‘in the hallways of my skin’), or the safe appeal of culturally sacred institutions, the narrator decides not to acquiesce any longer to the ease of familiarity (‘I cannot kneel’). 

The titular line remains elusive still, even to me. Is it ‘I’m just like you’, a self-aware acknowledgement of how deep that conditioning goes, or ‘I just like you’, the rare feeling of connection you find with a person also committed to breaking these cycles?”

You can listen to “Just Like You” anywhere you find your music as well as preorder Watch the Sunflowers on vinyl.

Written by Shea Roney | Photo by Jackie West