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.
La Luz
News of The Universe
1. Reaching Up to the Sun
2. Strange World
3. Dandelions
4. Poppies
5. Good Luck With Your Secret
6. Always in Love
7. Close Your Eyes
8. I’ll Go With You
9. Blue Moth Cloud Shadow
10. News of the Universe
11. Moon in Reverse
12. Blue Jay
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
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Corridor
Mimi
Tracklisting
1. Phase IV
2. Mon Argent
3. Jump Cut
4. Caméra
5. Chenil
6. Porte Ouverte
7. Mourir Demain
8. Pellicule
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
Today, Monday, March 4th,
Shabazz Palaces is sharing
“Take Me To Your Leader” a Kraftwerk-esque jam featuring Ishmael Butler’s alter ego Lavarr the Starr, and is the closing track from
Exotic Birds of Prey, his forthcoming seven-song mini-album.
Exotic… will be available on CD/LP/DSPs March 29th worldwide from Sub Pop, and is the follow-up to
Robed in Rareness, his well-received album from October 2023.
Robed is available now on DSPs but will also be available on CD/LP formats on March 29th, 2024.
Shabazz Palaces has announced European and UK dates in support of Robed in Rareness and Exotic Birds of Prey, which begin April 27th in Paris, France at Le Petit Bain and currently end May 22nd in Braga, PT at Gnration. Preceding these dates, Shabazz Palaces will also appear at My Morning Jacket’s “One Big Holiday” at Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, April 4th-7th, 2024.
Sat. Apr. 27 - Paris, FR - Le Petit Bain
Tue. Apr. 30 - Lille, FR - Aeronef
Wed. May 01 - Brussels, BE - AB Club
Thu. May 02 - Ramsgate, UK - Music Hall in
Fri. May 03 - Dublin, IE - Sugar Club
Sat. May 04 - Leeds, UK - Headrow House
Sun. May 05 - Manchester, UK - YES Pink Room
Mon. May 06 - Brighton, UK - Patterns
Tue. May 07 - London, UK - Village Underground
Thu. May 09 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso
Sat. May 11 - Copenhagen, DK - Huset
Sun. May 12 - Hamburg, DE - Turmzimmer
Mon. May 13 - Berlin, DE - Frannz Club
Tue. May 14 - Prague, CZ - Meet Factory
Thu. May 16 - Geneva, CH - L’Usine
Sun. May 19 - San Sebastian, ES - Dabadaba
Mon. May 20 - Madrid, ES - Cafe Berlin
Tue. May 21 - Lisbon, PT - B. Leza
Wed. May 22 - Braga, PT - Gnration
Shabazz Palaces is masterminded by vocalist and producer Ismael Butler, whose unstinting drive to reimagine hip-hop – even as he enjoys his fifth decade on Earth – remains undimmed.
Exotic Birds of Prey furthers the modus operandi of its predecessor,
Robed in Rareness – a respectful eye on the past, an embrace of an ever-evolving present, and its feet are firmly planted in the future. Where
Robed… warped sounds like shoegaze and ambient music into the Shabazz Palaces multiverse,
Exotic… cross-pollinates these elements with twisted electro and funk vibes.
This new endeavor features collaborations with the likes of Stas THEE Boss, Irene Barber, the aforementioned Lavarr the Starr, Japreme Magnetic, OC Notes, Cobra Coil, and Purple Tape Nate.
Exotic Birds of Prey was produced by Shabazz Palaces, mixed by Erik Blood, and engineered by Ishmael Butler and Blood at Studio4 West in Venice, California, with mastering by Warren Defever at Third Man Mastering.
Exotic Birds of Prey and Robed in Rareness are now available to preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders for each release in North America from
megamart.subpop.com and
select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser Editions for
Exotic Birds of Prey on Translucent White vinyl and
Robed in Rareness on Translucent Ruby vinyl.
In the UK and Europe, LP orders from Mega Mart 2 (the new, UK-based sibling site to the world-famous Sub Pop Mega Mart) and
independent retail stores will receive the Loser Editions for
Exotic Birds of Prey on Cream White vinyl and
Robed in Rareness on Red vinyl.
NPR Music called
Robed in Rareness “Enchanting and subversive…” while
Pitchfork offered this, “The futurism of Shabazz Palaces has always been interwoven with the past and present, their songs scintillating tapestries of old-school shit talk, proggy psychedelia, and melodic flossing.
Robed in Rareness is draped in this multiplicity as Butler and a team of close collaborators swagger across eras of rap.”
Shabazz PalacesExotic Birds Of Prey Tracklisting
1. Exotic BOP (feat. Purple Tape Nate)
2. Angela (feat. Stas THEE Boss & Irene Barber)
3. Myths Of The Occult (feat. Japreme Magnetic)
4. Goat Me (feat. Cobra Coil)
5. Well Known Nobody (feat. OCnotes)
6. Synth Dirt
7. Take Me To Your Leader (feat. Lavarr the Starr)
