After spending much of the past year on the road together, a familiar collaboration is taking shape again. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis have announced a new album and a run of live dates across North America.
The record is titled Deface the Currency and is set for release on February 20, 2026. Impulse! will handle the release. A first track, Gestations, has already been shared, giving an early sense of the project’s direction without framing it as a full statement.
The collaboration brings together musicians from different corners of the Washington, D.C. music world. The Messthetics feature bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, both long associated with Fugazi, alongside guitarist Anthony Pirog. Lewis comes from a modern jazz background rooted in improvisation and composition. The new material grew out of sustained touring, with the group playing dozens of shows together over the past year.
Live dates are scheduled from mid-April through early May 2026. The tour reflects a broader trend of boundary crossing between jazz and post-punk scenes, where long-term chemistry matters more than genre labels.