The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis Return with Deface The Currency

2nd LP out Feb. 20 on Impulse! Records

January 9, 2026January 10, 2026 Ron Hart 0 Comments Anthony Pirog, Brendan Canty, Deface The Currency, Fugazi, Impulse! Records, James Brandon Lewis, Joe Lally, The Messthetics, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis Deface The Currency, Impulse! Records 2026

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis are back together again with a new collaborative album, Deface The Currency, out Feb. 20 on Impulse! Records.

This powerful quartet — comprised of Mr. Lewis on tenor saxophone, guitarist Anthony Pirog and the rhythm section of Fugazi in bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty — have grown tremendously as a group after playing 150 shows together in a single year. And Deface The Currency promises fans a deeper, more dynamic output across seven new compositions.

“The more you know someone, the better the relationship is, the more enriched it becomes,” Lewis says. “It’s like a cast-iron skillet: The more you keep cooking in it, the better the food gets. So I think that’s what you hear on the record, and you hear an urgency of now.”

To support the new album, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis will be hitting the road for a North American tour that begins in Portland, Oregon, on April 17. Please see below for the full itinerary.

You can also check out the heady video for the first single from Deface The Currency, the funky, Sonny Sharrock-invoking bebop workout “Gestations,” at the bottom of this story.