Politics and Divorce Play a Part in Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s New Album, ‘New Fragility’

For Alec Ounsworth, front man and principal songwriter for the indie rock band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the past four years have been beset by turmoil. Some of the reasons for the recent struggles are ones that he shares with many people, including enduring the divisive contemporary American political system and the stifling COVID-19 pandemic. But others are more personal. Recently, Ounsworth went through a difficult divorce. And while many of the details obviously remain private, what the artist does say about the experience is that it mirrored, in some ways, what he’s noticed in the United States of late, namely that something you believed you knew well is not actually what you thought. The catalysts for this dual-pronged epiphany have become the foundation for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s forthcoming album, New Fragility, which is set for release January 29th.