Pavement are reportedly returning to the studio, with Stephen Malkmus staying quiet on new songs

Following the 2024 biopic Pavements, which saw the indie rock moguls release a cover of Jim Pepper's song "Witchitai-To" in the accompanying soundtrack as their first new music in twenty-five years, questions have been raised as to whether the band might be looking at a full return.

With a reunion tour that took place from 2022 through 2024, it would seem like the next step — though Malkmus told NME that recording new music would be "total cringe". “No way. These songs are good, they exist in this present," he said. "That’s just me, anyone can do what they want. It’s your life, choose your adventure. If any band wants to make a new album, they like to do that, that’s totally rad. But, yeah, not happening.”

But in a new interview with Pitchfork, out today, it was shared that following a cancelled set at the Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, 19 September, due to bad weather conditions, the band all travelled to drummer Steve West's home in Virginia on the Sunday to rehearse for a recording session.

“'No comment,' anyone I asked in the band’s organization said, often with a smile," interviewer Grayson Haven Currin writes of his attempts to find out more about the session, which he was informed of by people around Pavement rather than members of the band themselves.

This comes at a time where Pavement are having something of a resurgence, with the band's 1999 song "Harness Your Hopes" seeing sudden virality, and a run of live shows and festival appearances scheduled for 2027.

But in speaking to Malkmus directly, the singer was pretty hush-hush about any music in the works. When asked about the future of Pavement — including new songs — Currin writes that the chemistry between the band, which has seen them through two extensive reunion tours, "has prompted him to focus, to think more about what is and might still be than what has been."

“Back then, it was more pressure-cooked. There was potential for resentment and fatigue, a never-ending merry-go-round,” Malkmus tells Currin. “And now, everyone looks forward to it. It’s like a version of vacation: You get to act like a rock star for a second, and then everyone goes back to their life.”