Musician René Kladzyk, who records as Ziemba, has announced a new album titled The Braid, due out this autumn as her first full-length since 2020's True Romantic. Alongside the announcement she has shared "The Pleasure Seekers", the album's opening track, as the second single following March's "The Perfect Rose". The release matters as part of a wider wave of comeback albums, arriving the same day as fellow artist THAO revealed her first new record in six years.

The Braid is a ten-track record featuring contributions from Andrew Macguire, Don Godwin, Will Segerstrom, Marta Honer and Ben Babbitt, among others, and was self-released on 2 October. Kladzyk has said "The Pleasure Seekers" was inspired by a conversation with a man in a Montana bar about a bad acid trip, and reflects her own past struggles with escapism and excess. She wrote and recorded the album while working full-time as a reporter covering the US immigration system and the Department of Defense.