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Dutch rock band Iguana Death Cult shares their highly anticipated LP Echo Palace, following the release of three stellar singles, "Oh No," "Pushermen," and "Sensory Overload," with praise from outlets such as DIY, Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Paste, and more.
Alongside the release, the band additionally shares a music video for the record's focus track, "I Just Want A House," described as a "funky millennial nihilist anthem."
On the track, the band wrote: "O the trouble we've found ourselves in! Young people are struggling to find a decent place to live, summers have gotten so hot that vast areas of land are turning into scorched earth, not only is there a patch of plastic in the ocean the size of Texas, apparently we swallow a credit card's worths of microplastic per person every week. Human greed has pushed us to the limits of existence. But since we wrote this groovy dancing song about it, we're probably not even close to being scared enough."
Continuing on the track's accompanying video, they wrote: "Because we were playing shows in the UK, we weren't able to work on this video ourselves, so we gave Hache complete freedom to make what he wanted. He joined forces with his actor friend Nol Klis and artist Helia Rafi, who made the 3D render. 'The idea for the video was about somebody trying to run away from the city and decided to live in the forest by himself. But you can't run away from yourself!' says Hache. I think it covers the message of the song very well since it's about having trouble keeping up in a rapidly changing world and the desire to have a place of your own."
Ahead of Sam Blasucci's forthcoming debut solo album, Off My Stars, the artist releases a video for the final album single "Every Night On the Farm." Blasucci says, "some words that come to mind are outdoors, tear, persona, queen, veins, and crescent. This song feels important to where I feel we are going."
Off My Stars arrives June 2, the LP is infused with an honest, personal perspective about settling into adult life—about developing as a person and a partner and a family member—it's a record with classic songbook sparkle inspired just as much by the music of Ronnie Wood and Sade as the films of Ingmar Bergman and writing of Brian Doyle.
Sam Blasucci releases a cover version of "Linger" by The Cranberries, the third album single off his forthcoming debut solo LP Off My Stars. Blasucci reveals, "The Cranberries’ song "Linger" is one I’ve always loved and wanted to perform, but I never really found its place. When I spoke to Johnny Payne (producer) about making a solo record, I told him that I wanted to expose things in me as they are, without altering them to make me appear any certain way. I think that comes through in our version of this song. Some words that remind me of "Linger" are midnight, tide, rock, salt, and breath."
Pre-order Off My Stars at this link.
Upcoming Tour Dates:
7/15 - Las Vegas, NV - The Griffin
7/16 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
7/18 - Boise, ID - Neurolux
7/19 - Portland, OR - Holocene
7/20 - Seattle, WA - Sunset
7/21 - Eugene, OR - Whirled Pies
7/22 - Bend, OR - Volcanic Theatre
7/25 - Bolinas, CA - Smiley's
7/26 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
7/28 - Los Angeles, CA - Permanent Records Roadhouse
7/29 - Los Angeles, CA - Permanent Records Roadhouse
"Love Is Hard Work" is a continuous 29 minute recording and something that Sean Guerin from De Lux has been wanting to make for a while. According to Guerin: "Before De Lux, I used to write long songs, but never really finish them. Written and recorded in mid 2021 for two months, it felt like a breeze to make 'Love Is Hard Work' because I had been thinking and talking about it for so long. Influenced by a lot of artists from ‘79-‘82, like Peter Gordon, Electric Mind, Evans Pyramid or Dizzy K, the track is intended to feel like a continuous flow of dance music. Instead of a stream of consciousness in lyricism, this is more of a stream of consciousness in instrumentation and songwriting; where ideas flow from one to the other without too much thought."
Purchase the limited edition vinyl, download or stream the track.
L.A.'s De Lux are a post-disco dance-punk DIY duo that sound like they could have come out of 1979 or 1982 just as easily as today. Founders and multi-instrumentalists Sean Guerin and Isaac Franco didn’t meet so much as simply appear to each other, sometime before high school ended and after learning to correctly fall off skateboards began. Even at age 18, however, it was the kind of connection that had been years in the making. Sean had been writing songs since he was 15 and had spent recent years recording and re-recording his own songs. And Isaac had been on a strict diet of classic and obscure disco and boogie music since he too was 15, figuring out the original source of hip-hop’s greatest samples thanks to an older brother with a DJ sideline and an enviable collection. They both were after the same thing in music—the groove, they say, where the bass and the beat align in a perfect way that makes you want a song to go on forever.
Ten years on from their well-received debut album, Voyage, the band now has four full length releases under their belt, including 2022's "Do You Need A Release?" Funny, profound & easy to groove to, De Lux has a host of influences ranging from 80’s new wave of the Tom Tom Club to the experimentation and imagery of The Clash’s “Sandinista!” to the cerebral DFA disco era.
Dan Tyler and Conrad McDonnell, aka Idjut Boys, are an English duo whose dub-heavy home songs incorporate their playful love of life. The duo met in the late '80s in Cambridge discovering that they shared a passion for similar music. Soon after, both moved to London and established the U-Star parties. The Idjuts' fusion of dub, house, and techno soon caught on and landed them gigs DJing all over the world.
McDonnell and Tyler established U-Star Records in 1993, releasing their debut 12" Idjut Boy. They continued releasing numerous 12"s throughout the 90's up to the current period consisting of original productions, along with remixes & re-edits of obscure and not-so-obscure material by other artists and a handful of DJ mixes. A proper Idjut Boys studio album, Cellar Door, was released on Smalltown Supersound in 2012. This was followed by Versions, an album of reworks of material from throughout the duo's career, in 2015.
On this 12" vinyl, the Idjuts remix a single, "What's Life" from De Lux's most recent "Do You Need A Release?"