Today, February 29th, Bully (aka Alicia Bognanno) has digitally released an intimate piano ballad entitled “Atom Bomb.”
Bognanno says, “The song was originally recorded with a drum machine and electric guitar; it was also quite a bit faster. When I played the demo for JT Daly (producer), he had the idea of moving it to the piano. I remember saying out loud, ‘Can you believe I’m trusting anybody like this?’ We both started laughing because starting off as someone who used to record, mix, and produce their own records to avoid the vulnerability that comes with working out creative ideas in the company of others, it was a huge step for me. That was our first real bonding moment, acknowledging that we were mutually up for trying new things and seeing each other’s ideas through before one of us shut it down.”
Bree Marie Fish directed the accompanying live video recorded and shot at MMK studios in Nashville, TN. Click HERE to watch.
This stand-alone track follows the release of Lucky For You, which garnered praise and notices from The New York Times, NPR Music,Rolling Stone, The FADER, Stereogum, Pitchfork, and more. Additionally, Bognanno recently contributed original music to the Apple TV show Buccaneers and was featured onMilitarie Gun’s recent song “Never Fucked Up Twice.”
Bully is currently on a tour of North America, performing in a rare solo setting while supporting Grouplove. The tour began last night in Seattle and ends on March 30th at Terminal Five in New York City. Please find a full list of dates below.
Thu. Feb. 29 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom # Sat. Mar. 02 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater # Tue. Mar. 05 - San Diego, CA - The Observatory North Park # Wed. Mar. 06 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues # Fri. Mar. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern # Sat. Mar. 09 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren # Mon. Mar. 11 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Van Buren # Tue. Mar. 12 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up Aspen # Wed. Mar. 13 - Denver, CO - Mission Ballroom # Fri. Mar. 15 - Saint Paul, MN - Palace Theatre # Sat. Mar. 16 - Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre # Sun. Mar. 17 - Detroit, MI - Saint Andrew’s Hall # Tue. Mar. 19 - Columbus, OH - KEMBA Live! # Wed. Mar. 20 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogart’s # Fri. Mar. 22 - Pittsburgh, PA - Roxian Theatre# Sat. Mar. 23 - Philadelphia, PA - Franklin Music Hall # Mon. Mar. 25 - Richmond, VA - The National # Fri. Mar. 29 - Boston, MA - Roadrunner # SAT. Mar. 30 - New York City, NY - Terminal Five # Thu. Nov. 14 - London, UK - Electric Ballroom
# w/ GROUPLOVE
What People are saying about Bully’s Lucky For You: “The result is a confident, compelling record that reveals — and revels in — the softness behind the feedback and fuzz that continue to make Bully a force to be reckoned with (8/10).” -EXCLAIM!
“Alicia Bognanno’s fourth album is an open-hearted, anthemic career-best (Album of the Week).” - PASTE
“…Lucky For You is Bully’s best album yet, immediate and undeniable and kind of awe-inspiring in its complex simplicity (Album of the Week).” STEREOGUM
“‘Days Move Slow,’ from Alicia Bognanno’s grungy indie-rock project Bully, is a song about being caught in the muck of grief — but it also has a propulsive, bouncy energy that promises eventual forward motion. “There’s flowers on your grave that grow,” Bognanno sings in her signature holler, battling her buzzing guitar. “Something’s gotta change, I know.” - NEW YORK TIMES
“‘Days Move Slow’ is a punchy but poignant tune, an energetic and honest exploration of grief that Bully’s Alicia Bognanno wrote after the death of her dog, Mezzi.” - ROLLING STONE
“‘Days Move Slow’ is pristine Bully – sparking pop, but also working with a seismic edge… Retaining the anthemic bite she’s become known for, the sessions adding aspects of shoegaze, punk, and late 90s British guitar pop.” - CLASH
“‘Lose You’ attempts to reckon with the idea that even a love that seems like it’ll last forever isn’t necessarily immortal. Taking cues from late ’80s and ’90s shoegaze pioneers, the track is driven by a steadily, thumping beat that backdrops Bognanno’s fuzzed-out guitars: “Either way I’m gonna lose you,” she and Allison lament in harmony, before a ripper of a guitar solo near the song’s end.” - CONSEQUENCE
“The rasp in Alicia Bognanno’s voice makes everything she sings engaging and she uses the pain inherent in that croak to great effect on ‘Lose You’” - THE FADER
“With lashings of scuzz and slacker fire, it’s a guaranteed hit with Gen X and Z alike.” [“Lose You”] - GUITAR WORLD
“‘Lose You’ is a succinct grunge-pop tune woven with stark realizations.” - FLOOD
“Featuring fellow fuzz-rocker Sophie Allison, AKA Soccer Mommy, ‘Lose You’ is one of those tracks that is filled to the brim with pop hooks and crunchy guitar riffs. As Bully and Soccer Mommy trade harmonies, the banging backing track that supports them continuously ebbs and flows through different dynamics. The sound is always ecstatic, especially when a trippy guitar solo bubbles up from the ether.” - FAR OUT
“Her fourth album is perhaps her most candid yet, and it’s all the more triumphant for it.” - Upset
“Cherry-picked from the rich tapestry of alt-rock past… but all heart, specifically Alicia Bognanno’s torn, bleeding irresistible heart.” - Classic Rock
“More layers and nuance than ever before… magnificently raw.” - Record Collector
Last month, Amen Dunes – the project of New York City-based Damon McMahon – announced his long-awaited new album, Death Jokes, will be released May 10th via Sub Pop. Today, McMahon unveils a new single, “Boys,” accompanied by a video directed by Steven Brahms and single art by the late photographer Ross McDonnell, which also appears on the album’s back cover. “Boys” follows the “delicately lilting stunner” (PAPER) “Purple Land,” which, as Stereogum praised, “feels like alternate-dimension folk-rock…as if built from extraterrestrial material.”
Death Jokes marks Amen Dunes’ first record since 2018’s Freedom, named a “best album of the decade” by Pitchfork. Instead of embarking on the eerie, modern blend of folk and blues for which he’s known, McMahon decided to become a beginner again, immersing himself in the fundamentals of both piano and the electronic music he’d grown up with at raves and clubs but never imagined himself able to make. For the first time since the project’s incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself and out sharply towards the world. Through samples and lyrics, the album plays like a scathing electronic essay on America’s culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism.
“Boys” was first written by McMahon in 2015 while on tour in Sicily, originally beginning as a pop-punk song before morphing into improvised electronic music: frenetic drum machines and samples of sirens, field recordings, and raves layered on top of McMahon’s double-tracked voice and guitar. McMahon explains: “‘Boys’ is another interstitial character portrait, this time about outcasts, ‘bad kids,’ and seeing things from their side: ‘Everything you’ve done, it’s been done to you too.’”
The “Boys” video, directed by Steven Brahms, focuses on innate destructive tendencies that McMahon explores throughout Death Jokes. “We only had one shot to destroy the room,” says Brahms. “The guys in the video gave us such an authentic look and flow. Everyone on the crew was buzzing after the shoot and we knew we had something special. Destruction can be very cathartic.”
Of the song’s single art by Ross McDonnell, McMahon elaborates: “I fell in love with Ross’ photos of boys in Ireland while making Death Jokes and he was generous enough to let me use this picture. The image felt tragic and humorous at the same time, much like these songs. Ross was a bold, adventurous, and wild artist: the kind I aspire to be. Just as this album was close to being finished, Ross tragically passed away swimming in the Atlantic. He was 43. Rest in Peace.”
While creating Death Jokes, McMahon struggled to find others who understood his unorthodox methods, this “loose, wild, self-propelled approach” that signaled a new direction for Amen Dunes. After two years and twenty-one failed collaborations, he made meaningful connections with a handful of talented artists and was able to create the profound collaborations he had been searching for. The jazz bassist Sam Wilkes appears on a trio of songs, producers Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Kwake Bass (Tirzah, Dean Blunt) provided tracks on several others; sessions with Panoram and Money Mark also ended up in the final version of Death Jokes.
On most songs, McMahon incorporated sounds, talking, and music pilfered from YouTube. The vast collage of samples include an interview with J Dilla, recordings from Type O Negative and Coil, a lyre performance of the oldest written song in human history, protest chants, a grunting powerlifter, and bits of stand-up from Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and others, as “thought provocation and irritant.”
The songs on Death Jokes almost seem to foresee the pandemic, but they’re more about the lingering effects those years have had on all of us, spiritually and emotionally. Their meaning transformed as the pandemic went on: at first they were reflections on our attachment to form, and to ourselves, and then they shifted into solemn indictments of our culture’s blind spots as we misjudge and attack, our veiled self-centeredness and self-importance masquerading as morality.
Amen Dunes will be playing concerts and festivals in select cities throughout the US, UK and Europe. A full list of dates is below and tickets are on sale now.
Sunny Day Real Estate and Sub Pop are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the band’s landmark album Diary with a new pearlescent vinyl edition of the remastered double LP and its release coincides with the band’s 2024 US tour commemorating the anniversary of the album.
This new version of Diary is now available to preorder from megamart.subpop.com, and select North American retailers (while supplies last).
Originally formed in Seattle in 1992, Sunny Day Real Estate featured Nate Mendel (bass), William Goldsmith (drums), Dan Hoerner (guitar, vocals) and Jeremy Enigk (vocals, guitar). Diary, the band’s first full-length album, was released in 1994 on Sub Pop, going on to become the seventh-best-selling record in the label’s history, with more than 231,000 copies scanned in the US alone. Diary was recorded at Chicago’s Idful Studios with producer Brad Wood and released to critical acclaim.
Pitchfork, in its “50 Best Indie Rock Albums of Pacific Northwest,” said of Diary, “The title would later be ridiculed as a symbol of emo’s inward focus, but Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary, their 1994 debut on Sub Pop, can be read in various ways: in the form of punk rock evolving away from its original designs into more dynamic and insecure space, or as a display of spiraling interplay between four talented musicians from Seattle.”
The Diary 30th Anniversary Tour begins Wednesday, March 13th in Lawrence, KS at Liberty Hall and currently ends with a two-night stand Friday, October 18th and Saturday, October 19th in Los Angeles at The Belasco. Please find a current list of dates below. For more information on tickets, please visit https://sunnyday.realestate.
Wed. Mar. 13 - Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall Thu. Mar. 14 - Oklahoma, OK - Tower Theatre Sat. Mar. 16 - Austin, TX - Stubb’s Austin (SPIN) Wed. May 01 - Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theatre Fri. May 03 - Gainesville, FL - High Dive [Sold Out] Sat. May 04 - Atlanta, GA - Shaky Knees Music Festival Tue. May 07 - Washington, D.C. - The Howard Theatre Thu. May 09 - Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts [Sold Out] Fri. May 10 - Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts Sun. May 12 - Boston, MA - Big Night Live Wed. May 15 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza [Sold Out] Thu. May 16 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza Wed. Aug. 14 - Dallas, TX - The Echo Lounge & Music Hall Sat. Aug. 17 - Denver, CO - Summit Tue. Aug. 20 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox [Sold Out] Wed. Aug. 21 - Portland, OR - Pioneer Courthouse Square (PDX Live) Fri. Aug. 23 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox [Sold Out] Sat. Aug. 24 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox Sun. Sep. 22 - Louisville, KY - Bourbon and Beyond Festival Wed. Sep. 25 - Chicago, IL - House of Blues Sat. Sep. 28 - Minneapolis, MN - The Fillmore Oct. 11-13 - Las Vegas, NV - Best Friends Forever Festival Tue. Oct. 15 - San Francisco, CA - August Hall Fri. Oct. 18 - Los Angeles, CA - The Belasco [Sold Out] Sat. Oct. 19 - Los Angeles, CA - The Belasco
Tracklisting: 1. Seven 2. In Circles 3. Song About an Angel 4. Round 5. 47 6. The Blankets Were the Stairs 7. Pheurton Skeurto 8. Shadows 9. 48 10. Grendel 11. Sometimes 12. 8 (bonus track) 13. 9 (bonus track)
A Lite Brite, falling pennies, and trinkets adorn the hypnotic looping visual for Corridor’s “Mon Argent,” a new single from Mimi, the Montreal band’s forthcoming new album.
Mimi is an eight-track offering, which includes the aforementioned “Mon Argent,” along with “Mourir Demain,” “Jump Cut” and “Camera,” and was produced by Corridor and Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) at Studio Gamma in Montreal and mastered by Heba Kadry Mastering in Brooklyn. All songs on Mimi were composed by Corridor, with lyrics written by guitarist and vocalist Jonathan Robert.
Corridor’s Mimi—which, fun fact, is also named after Jonathan’s cat—is a record about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life”—but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is also a record bursting with new energy and life. The band expands on the sounds of Junior and delivers an album with a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of post-punk’s own classic era of melding dance and rock textures.
Corridor’s international tour plans for 2024 to support Mimi begin Saturday, March 9th at Pitchfork Music Festival Mexico City and currently ends October 4th with a hometown show in Montreal at Le National. New highlights include a short UK/EU run (May 11th-18th) and a tour of France (November 6th-16th). The band will also appear at SXSW (March 13th-15th)—additional live dates to be announced soon.
Sat. Mar. 09 - Mexico City, MX - Pitchfork Music Festival Mexico City * Tue. Mar. 12 - Los Angeles, CA - Ghengis Cohen Wed. Mar. 13 - Austin, TX - SXSW Thu. Mar. 14 - Austin, TX - SXSW Fri. Mar. 15 - Austin, TX - SXSW Sat. May 11 - Esch-sur-Alzette, LU - Centre Culturel Kulturfabrik (Out Of The Crowd Festival) Mon. May 13 - Brussels, BE - Botanique Wed. May 15 - Leeds, UK - Hyde Park Book Club Thu. May 16 - London, UK - Shacklewell Arms (Free Show) Sat. May 18 - Brighton, UK - The Great Escape Festival (Patterns) Thu. May 30 - McGill, NV - Schellraiser Festival Wed. Nov. 06 - Paris, FR - La Maroquinerie Thu. Nov. 07 - Lorient, FR Festival Indisciplines @ Hydrophone Fri. Nov. 08 - Amiens, FR La Lune des Pirates Sat. Nov. 09 - Lille, FR - L’Aeronef Sun. Nov. 10 - Laval, FR - 6PAR4 (Matinee Show at 5.30pm) Tue. Nov. 12 - Limoges, FR - Jean-Gagnant Wed. Nov. 13 - La Roche Sur-Yon, FR - Quai M Thu. Nov. 14 - Bordeaux, FR - Rock School Barbey Fri. Nov. 15 - Rouen, FR - Le 106 Sat. Nov. 16 - Caen, FR - Le Cargö Fri. Oct. 04 - Montreal, QC Le National
Mimi is now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders of the album from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will receive the Loser Edition on Baby Pink vinyl. LP orders from Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) and select independent retailers the UK and Europe, will receive the Loser Edition on Blue vinyl. All whilst stock lasts.
What people are saying about Corridor: “Lead single ‘Mourir Demain’ exemplifies this – the jagged edges nod to post-punk, but there’s a sense of 60s baroque pop, too. The lilting French language vocal is intoxicating, while the slightly martial feel to the drumming underneath gives it an added intensity.” CLASH
“Grandly psychedelic” (“Mourir Demain”) STEREOGUM
“I’d rather listen to this all day than the 300th band that wants to be the next Idles.” AUSTIN TOWN HALL
“The first single from Mimi is “Mourir Demain,” which with its prominent acoustic guitars sounds unlike anything Corridor have ever released before.” - BROOKLYN VEGAN
Today, March 6th, 2024, Iron & Wine shares “All In Good Time,” a glorious new song in which Fiona Apple lends her voice and written by Sam Beam in the vein of classic call-and-response style duets made famous by Dolly and Kenny and George and Tammy.
Sam Beam says of Fiona’s contribution to the song, “Her voice is a miracle that sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time.” The glorious single is a standout from Iron & Wine’s forthcoming album, Light Verse.
Light Verse is a ten-track collection produced by Beam and mixed and engineered by Dave Way at Waystation and Silent Zoo Studios in Los Angeles. Light Verse is the first full-length Iron & Wine release in over seven years and follows his two Grammy-nominated releases, 2017’s Beast Epic and 2018’s Weed Garden EP.
Iron & Wine is extending his 2024 headlining tour plans to support Light Verse to include a UK and EU run this fall, which begins October 22nd in Belfast, Ireland at Mandela Hall and ends November 15th in Antwerp, Belgium at De Roma.
Tickets go on sale on Friday March 8th at 10 am (local). For regular updates on tickets please visit https://ironandwine.com/tours.
His previously announced North American dates begin Friday, June 14th in Milwaukee, WI at The Pabst Theatre and currently run through Saturday, August 24th in Nashville, TN at The Ryman. Please find a complete list of tour dates below.
North America Summer 2024 Fri. Jun. 14 - Milwaukee, WI - The Pabst Theater Sat. Jun. 15 - St Paul, MN - Palace Theatre Mon. Jun. 17 - Denver, CO - Mission Ballroom Tue. Jun. 18 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Union Thu. Jun. 20 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre Fri. Jun. 21 - Portland, OR - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Sat. Jun. 22 - Portland, OR - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Sun. Jun. 23 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom Tue. Jun. 25 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater Thur. Jun. 27 - Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre Fri. Jun. 28 - Los Angeles, CA - The Bellweather Sat. Jun. 29 - Los Angeles, CA - The Bellweather Sun. Jun. 30 - El Cajon, CA - The Magnolia Tue. Jul. 02 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren Wed. Jul. 03 - Taos, NM - Kit Carson Park * (support for Avett Brothers) Fri. Jul. 05 - Tulsa, OK - Cain’s Ballroom Sat. Jul. 06 - St Louis, MO - The Pageant Mon. Jul. 08 - Chicago, IL - The Salt Shed Wed. Jul. 31 - New Orleans, LA - Orpheum Theater Thu. Aug. 01 - Houston, TX- White Oak Music Hall Fri. Aug. 02 - Austin, TX - ACL Live at the Moody Theater Sat. Aug. 03 - Dallas, TX - Majestic Theatre Mon. Aug. 05 - Atlanta, GA - The Eastern Tue. Aug. 06 - Wilmington, NC - Wilson Center at CFCC Wed. Aug. 07 - Raleigh, NC - Meymandi Concert Hall Fri. Aug. 09 - Washington, DC - The Anthem Sat. Aug. 10 - Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore Philadelphia Sun. Aug. 11 - Boston, MA - Roadrunner Tue. Aug. 13 - New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall Wed. Aug. 14 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Paramount Fri. Aug. 16 - Montreal, QC - MTELUS Sat. Aug. 17 - Toronto, ON - The Danforth Music Hall Sun. Aug. 18 - Detroit, MI - Masonic Cathedral Theatre Tue. Aug. 20 - Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre Thu. Aug. 22 - Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room at Old National Centre Fri. Aug. 23 - Louisville, KY - Old Forester’s Paristown Hall Sat. Aug. 24 - Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
UK/EU Fall 2024 Tue. Oct. 22 - Belfast, UK - Mandela Hall Wed. Oct. 23 - Dublin, IE - Vicar Street Fri. Oct. 25 - Edinburgh, UK - Queens Hall Sat. Oct. 26 - Manchester, UK - New Century Hall Sun. Oct. 27 - Bristol, UK - SWX Tue. Oct. 29 - Birmingham, UK - Birmingham Town Hall Wed. Oct. 30 - London, UK - London Palladium Thu. Oct. 31 - Cambridge, UK - Junction Mon. Nov. 04 - Copenhagen, DK - DR Koncerthuset Tue. Nov. 05 - Stockholm, SE - Göta Lejon Wed. Nov. 06 - Oslo, NO - Rockefeller Thu. Nov. 07 - Gothenburg, SE - Pustervik Sat. Nov. 09 - Hamburg, DE - Fabrik Mon. Nov. 11 Berlin, DE - Huxleys Tue. Nov. 12 - Cologne, DE - Bürgerhaus stollwerck Thu. Nov 14 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Fri. Nov. 15 - Antwerp, BE - De Roma
With Light Verse, Beam’s lyrics once again draw on a series of fictional and personal insights, filled with desperate characters and wide-eyed optimists, offering promise and a dose of heartache, tears and laughter, life and love. It’s also Iron & Wine’s most playful record, with its title reflecting how the songs were born with joy after the heaviness and anxiety of the pandemic. Where Beast Epic and Weed Garden gave air to the disquiet of middle-aged frailty and brokenness, Light Verse’s songs trade that for the focus acceptance can bring. Moment by moment, they delight in being pointed or silly (or both) and attempt beauty over prettiness.
Fashioned as an album that should be taken as a whole, Light Verse sounds lovingly handmade and self-assured as a secret handshake. Track by track, its equal parts elegy, kaleidoscope, truth and dare.
Iron & Wine’s Who Can See Forever soundtrack is also available from Sub Pop. The documentary concert film is being released theatrically throughout North America by Abramorama after a string of sold-out screenings in select markets like New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Denver. Who Can See Forever will continue its theatrical run throughout 2024 before platforming to streaming services later in the year (see full a current list of dates here).
Iron & Wine Light Verse
Tracklisting: 1. You Never Know 2. Anyone’s Game 3. All in Good Time (Feat. Fiona Apple) 4. Cutting It Close 5. Taken by Surprise 6. Yellow Jacket 7. Sweet Talk 8. Tears that Don’t Matter 9. Bag of Cats 10. Angels Go Home
La Luz - the band led by Shana Cleveland – has announced the May 24 release of their new album, News of the Universe. The LP marks their first for Sub Pop. With a credo adapted from science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, an album title from a collection of metaphysical poetry, and an expansion in consciousness brought on by personal crisis, the album finds guitarist and songwriter Cleveland embracing a changing world with unconditional love. News of the Universe is also a record born of calamity, a work of dark, beautiful psychedelia reflecting Cleveland’s experience of having her world blown apart by a breast cancer diagnosis just two years after the birth of her son.
Today, La Luz shares “Strange World,” the first single off of News of the Universe. “It’s been a strange and difficult few years, and at moments, I have found myself rushing to move forward in time, to leave the present and escape to whatever is next,” says Cleveland. “The best advice a friend gave me during a time when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed and battling consecutive panic attacks was to go outside, take my shoes off, and sit with my feet on the earth. This seemed to slow the universe down in a way that made it feel easier to handle. So this chorus is something of a mantra to myself ‘we’ll be fine, just take your time.’” The video was shot by Vanessa Pla and features Cleveland on a bike delivering the La Luz Observer newspaper whose headline reads “News of the Universe.” Listen/share “Strange World” here and watch the video below.
La Luz will be touring North America, Europe, and the UK in support of News of the Universe, and the first run of dates will kick off May 23 in Barcelona. The band’s first show stateside is on May 30 at The Crocodile in Seattle, WA for a Record Release Show They return for the full run on September 26 for a show in Chicago, IL, stopping at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere on October 9 before concluding with a 2-night run at Lodge Room in Los Angeles, CA, on November 8 and 9. All shows are listed below.
News of the Universe marks the first appearance for drummer Audrey Johnson and the final ones from longtime La Luz members bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandahl, whose contributions add a bittersweet edge to a record that is both elegy for an old world and cosmic road map to a strange new one.
Formed by Cleveland in 2012, La Luz is beloved for their ability to balance bedlam and bliss, each new record another fine-tuning of the band’s mix of swaggering riffs with angelic vocals borrowed from doo-wop and folk; a band so reliably great that it makes the huge step forward in confidence and sheer musicality that is News of the Universe all the more formidable. Cleveland, also a writer and painter, has developed into a truly original songwriter with her own canon of haunted psychedelia that, in recent years, has drawn upon the changing landscape around her rural California home for inspiration, notably on last year’s critically acclaimed solo release, Manzanita, a magical realist documentation of her pregnancy and early motherhood that appeared on many year-end lists.
Yet if Cleveland has spent years writing songs about ghosts, what lurks in the shadows of News of the Universe is nothing less than death itself. “There are moments on this album that sound to me like the last frantic confession before an asteroid destroys the earth,” says Cleveland.
Sonically, the record is all urgency. Songs trip over themselves as if trying to outrun the apocalypse: the breathless pitter-pattering of toms on “Strange World,” the title track’s finger-tangling opening riff drenched in murky distortion. An atmosphere of doom hovers hazily over the Sgt. Pepper-esque baroque pop song “Poppies,” on which Cleveland sings of a wavering orange idyll about to be set ablaze by the late summer sun. On the similarly kaleidoscopic “Dandelions,” she figures the yellow flowers for unsuspecting “little suns” soon to be “turning into moons” as the season marches on. The synthesized sounds used on the band’s last record, 2021’s La Luz, to mimic the languid buzz and crackle of a summer’s day in the countryside have been cut adrift in space—now they are silvery comet tails, dapplings of space dust, showers of stars.
These earthy observations are inspired by Cleveland’s walks around her home in the shell-shocked days post-diagnosis when she found she had to be very intentional about what she consumed. “Seeing the cycle of life, seeing things grow out of decay, the decay of other living things—was super comforting to me. I had to get to a place where I felt more comfortable with the idea of death,” she says.
But for every moment of fear, there is one of pure ecstasy. Shimmery chamber pop song “Blue Moth Cloud Shadow” puddles into a twinkly organ-driven reverie; “I’ll Go With You” starts out with the record’s sludgiest riff before turning into its prettiest song. “Always in Love” is a real power-of-love ballad that serves as the record’s centerpiece and is capped off by a fiery and jubilant guitar solo, Cleveland’s own “November Rain” moment.
The powerful sense of openness that permeates News of the Universe is at least partially due to the fact that it is a record made entirely by women—from the performing, writing, and producing all the way through to the recording, engineering, and mastering. “There is something inherently and simultaneously sweet and brutal about womanhood,” says Cleveland. “That is something I hear on this record.”
Working with producer Maryam Qudos (Spacemoth), the all-female environment allowed Cleveland to feel safe tapping into difficult places and expressing hard emotions women are socialized to suppress. “Having that kind of connection and that comfort straightaway let us push it further,” she says. “We didn’t spend the first half of the session being careful not to offend someone’s ego.”
Qudos also helped shape the songs, bringing ideas to the table “that to me felt like choices that I would not normally make, but I was really stoked about,” says Cleveland, pointing out that the dubbed-out effects on “Moon in Reverse” were all Qudos. “Sometimes she would have ideas about the structure of the songs, which a producer often doesn’t really mess with. But as a songwriter herself, I think she felt really comfortable with us.” Their working relationship was so organic that Qudos has since joined La Luz full-time on keyboards to replace the departing Sandahl.
Unashamedly vulnerable, unabashedly feminine, and undeniably triumphant, News of the Universe is another knockout record from a band so reliably great that it has perhaps led people to overlook how pioneering La Luz really are: women of color in indie music forging their own path by following their own artistic star into galaxies beyond current musical trends, always led by an earnest belief in the cosmic power of love and a great riff. Never is that more true than on News of the Universe, which might be La Luz’s most brutal record to date but also their most blissful. After everything, how could it not?
La Luz Tour Dates
05/23 Barcelona, ES @ Sala Upload
05/24 Madrid, ES @ Tomavistas Festival
05/25 London, UK @ Wide Awake Festival
05/30 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile (Record Release Show)
07/27 Portland, OR @ Project Pabst
08/30 Brighton, UK @ Brighton Psych Fest
08/31 Manchester, UK @ Manchester Psych Fest
09/01 Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh Psych Fest
09/03 Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
09/05 Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
09/06 Sart-Messire-Guillaume, BE @ SMG Music Fest
09/07 Asten-Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
09/08 Amsterdam, NL @ Indiestadt x Suger Mountain @ Paradiso
09/10 Cologne, DE @ Bumann & SOHN
09/11 Hamburg, DE @ Prinzenbar
09/12 Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
09/13 Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
09/14 Zürich, DE @ Bogen
09/26 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
09/27 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
09/28 St. Paul, MM @ Turf Club
09/30 St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
10/01 Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
10/02 Nashville, TN @ The End
10/03 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade - Purgatory
10/04 Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
10/05 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall
10/06 Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
10/08 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
10/09 Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere - Hall
10/10 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
10/11 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
10/12 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
10/13 Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch
10/28 Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater
10/30 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10/31 Boise, ID @ The Olympic
11/03 Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
11/06 Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
11/07 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
11/08 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
11/09 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
News of the Universe is available to preorder now on CD/LP/DSPs from Sub Pop. LP preorders in North America from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers and in Europe and the UK from independent retail stores, and Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) will receive the “Luzer” Edition on Translucent Orange Crush. All colored vinyl versions are available while stock lasts.
