- 2026-01-29
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MUSIC
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New German Cinema Announces Debut Album “Pain Will Polish Me”, Shares New Song “My Mistake” feauring Carson Cox
Brighton-based indie pop band Fear of Men's vocalist Jess Weiss has announced her upcoming debut solo album “Pain Will Polish Me” will be released under the moniker New German Cinema on March 27, 2026.
It is her first album in a decade since Fear of Men's last album “Fall Forever” in 2026.
The album comprises 12 tracks, which Jess Weiss recorded with producer Alex DeGroot over five years between London and Los Angeles.
Jess Weiss said of the album, “This album is somehow both exciting and painful to share. I hope some people enjoy it. It's a meditation on pop and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, about the parts of yourself that dissolve in love, and the small acts of violence that come with being known.”
From the album, she unveiled a new song “My Mistake” on January 28, 2026.
On the track, she teamed up with American post-punk band Merchandise's frontman Carson Cox.
The song is accompanied by the Luke Bather-directed music video.- Jess Weiss said of the song, “I was going to produce Fear of Men and instead we made something totally different I think. True collaboration which is my preferred way to work on music.”
She said of the video, “The video sets the emotional tone for the record, suspended between eroticism and nightmare. It draws on cropped mirror framing - a favourite device of Douglas Sirk used to explore themes of emotional and physical entrapment and characters' inner psychological conflicts - moments of dissociation, and the television as a symbol of alienation, inspired by my perennial inspiration, RW Fassbinder.” -
Director Luke Bather said, “Our initial starting point was, predictably, the New German Cinema movement. However, when we discussed the themes of the song in more depth, the video evolved into its own beast. Sex, death, repressed desire, and good old-fashioned Catholic Guilt all loom large in the video through a series of performance vignettes inspired by everything from the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder through to the paintings of Francis Bacon and everything in between. Adding to this, we have the spectre of Carson haunting the video as a ghostly analogue broadcast interspersed with archival footage of Berlin in the 1970s; an inescapable reminder of the past and a nod to the original New German Cinema movement.”
Photo by Conor J Clarke - source : Apple Music
