New York City’s Blums — the project of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kelsea Feder — has officially planted her flag. Today, the Bushwick-tested art pop artist announced her debut full-length, Sunk Cost Fantasy, arriving August 7, 2026 via Brooklyn’s Take Care Records, and dropped the record’s anthemic lead single “Cashout” alongside a fever-dream official music video.

If “Sinking/Soaring” was the woozy, jazz-club overture that turned heads at Nina Protocol, Alternative Press, and The Line of Best Fit last month, “Cashout” is the moment Blums kicks the door in. Pulsating synths and a driving kick drum punctuate every cutting line Feder delivers as she reckons with distressing memories and the cyclical highs and lows we can’t seem to stop revisiting. Then, right when the tension threatens to buckle, the track blooms into a cascade of operatic vocals and tumbling drums — the sound of an internal struggle spilling messily, gloriously into the open.

The accompanying video, directed by Ella Sinskey and Colter Fellows (Lip Critic, Isabella Lovestory), delivers exactly the “fever dream Coyote Ugly bar dance sequence” Feder had been dreaming up for over two years, complete with choreography by Matilda Sakomoto and knife-flipping on a South Jersey roadside where she grew up. It’s a fantasy of catharsis rendered in full technicolor — Blums confronting her own frozen memory with a blade and a beat.

“I came home from a night with a guy during which I had a pretty unpleasant memory pop up and wig me out during what was supposed to be a fun time,” Feder explains. “It unlocked a lot of unpleasant memories and anger during what was supposed to be a sexy, fun time, and I wanted to turn it into a celebration of catharsis.” She wrote the towering vocal layers that stack at the song’s climax while pacing manically around Maria Hernandez Park in the final stretch of recording — a detail you can practically hear crackling through the mix.

Watch the official music video for “Cashout” here: https://www.youtube.com/@blums

Produced with co-producer Kirk Palsma over several years, Sunk Cost Fantasy plays on the sunk cost fallacy — that stubborn refusal to walk away from something failing because we’ve already sunk so much into it. Backed largely by musicians with jazz and classical backgrounds, Feder built a record that is chaotic and ephemeral, hook-forward but transient — “a rose-tinged make-believe with sharp teeth,” as her camp aptly puts it. From the pitched-up portal of opener “Intro,” through the Disney-swirl of “Still,” the sampled-noise heartbreak of “Celsius,” the trip-hop sputter of “Side of the Road,” and the manipulated-vocal eruption of acoustic ballad “Judy,” the album’s disruptions become its emotional engine.

Known for magnetic live shows, Blums has shared bills with May Rio, Bella Litsa, Nyxy Nyx, fantasy of a broken heart, and Shallowhalo, and recently previewed new material at Rachel Lime’s album release show at Union Pool. More dates are on the way — follow @blums____ on Instagram for announcements.

Sunk Cost Fantasy Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Still
3. Sinking/Soaring
4. Salty
5. Celsius
6. Side of the Road
7. Cashout
8. Triple A (as a healer)
9. Judy
10. Further Away
11. Unspent

Sunk Cost Fantasy is out August 7, 2026 via Take Care Records. Pre-order now, hit play on “Cashout,” and let the rupture do its thing.