Los Angeles’ Allah-Las have announced the October 13 release of their new album, Zuma 85. Today they share the first taste of the new album via the lead single and LP opener, “The Stuff,” b/w the title track “Zuma 85.” The glammy and electronic strut “The Stuff” signals the start of a new era for Allah-Las, and finds the band reinventing itself in defiance of the algorithmic categorization and robotic sterility. Showing another side of the album the instrumental “Zuma 85” features field recordings with chimes that precede Manuel Göttsching (Ash Ra)-style guitars, which drift aquatically over a motorik rhythm and hazy synths.
Sharing a name with “Zuma 85” is a photo of an abandoned house by California photographer John Divola. Selected by Correia, the band’s resident photography head and album art designer, it juxtaposes a visage of man-made chaos against the natural beauty of the West Coast. It served as an unspoken reference point for the album, a symbolic totem indicative of a new era.
“‘The Stuff’ is a tongue-in-cheek ode to rock tropes and nostalgic sentiments in the music world, including stereotypes of musicians and various trends in music,” says the band.
Allah-Las have confirmed Summer and Fall Tour dates that include headline shows and festival dates across the US, Mexico and Europe. The tour kicks off June 15 in Oslo, NO and concludes November18 in SanFrancisco, CA. Along the way they wll play at New York City’s Rockaway Beach on August 4 at the Rockaway Beach Hotel and at The Lodge Room in Los Angeles on November15 and November16.
Zuma 85 is being released via the band’s own label, Calico Discos, in partnership with Innovative Leisure, which released earlier defining statements from the band including the eponymously named Allah-Las (2012) and Worship The Sun (2014).
The pandemic induced downtime of 2020-2022 opened up space for the band members to focus on their own lives and interests, and the time to re-envision what creative processes could look like. When it came time to reconvene, a sense of looseness proved pivotal. Instead of bringing finished songs to the studio, they entered the picturesque Panoramic House recording in Stinson Beach with sketches, ideas, and riffs. Working with co-producer Jeremy Harris (White Fence, Devendra Banhart, Ty Segall) they shaped and crafted the new songs in real time over three sessions, which were then mixed in Los Angeles by frequent collaborator Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, Avalanches, Purple Mountains).
It was clear from the get go the bucolic environment—observed through picture windows overlooking Stinson Beach and Bolinas Bay—would be conducive to creating the first statement from Allah-Las 2.0. “We got in real late that first night of the first session,” Michaud says. “It was around midnight. We had a quick intro and Jeremy had a bottle of wine. We had a little and he said, ‘You wanna start recording?’”
They did. And when the group reassembled the following morning to listen back, they found the sparkling and stutter--stepped “Right On Time” mostly done. It was unlike anything the band had ever recorded but felt entirely natural. “Everything just worked,” Michaud says. “That studio just pulls it out of you.”
Zuma 85 finds the Allah-Las departing familiar territory and embracing the influence of late-era Lou Reed and John Cale, the ‘70s mutant pop of Peter Ivers and early Eno and Roxy Music, and textures borrowed from Japanese pop and loner-folk obscurities. There are kosmische zones, like the Popol Vuh-evoking “Hadal Zone,” anthemic and electronic boogies like “The Stuff” and “Sky Club,” and arch prog on tunes like “GB BB” and “Smog Cutter.”
For the last 15 years, Allah-Las have alchemically melded surf rock washes with folk rock jangle and rock, building up their lauded music podcast, Reverberation Radio, and record label, Calico Discos, in the process.A lot has changed since the group first bonded over psych rock vinyl in the back room at Amoeba Records in the late aughts and Zuma 85 finds the quartet facing a new world with a wealth of new sounds.
Allah-Las are Matthew Correia (drums/vocals), Spencer Dunham (bass, guitar, vocals), Miles Michaud (guitar, organ, vocals), and Pedrum Siadatian (guitar, synth, vocals).
Toronto-based DJ and producer BAMBII announces her highly-anticipated EP Infinity Club, out August 4th. Alongside the announcement, BAMBII shares her electrifying new single "Wicked Gyal," featuring North London rapper Lady Lykez, which features an infectious beat that fuses jungle, dancehall and garage sounds, and radiates unapologetic confidence from two powerhouse artists. The new single follows BAMBII's previous single "One Touch," which was deemed Best New Track by Pitchfork and was featured in Apple's new MacBook Air commercial last week.
Infinity Club finds BAMBII building on her already-impressive sonic repertoire, encapsulating the sound of a generation of Caribbean diaspora youth living between two worlds. On the heels of bringing her kinetic production style to Kelela's recent album Raven, this new EP establishes BAMBII as a trailblazing voice in the intersecting worlds of electronic and Caribbean music. The project opens the door to a limitless space that blurs the lines between memories and dreams, anchored by ecstatic production by BAMBII that centers on the solace one can find in the middle of a crowded dance floor. In BAMBII's telling, Infinity Club soundtracks an anonymous space holding a community of bodies all flowing to the same rhythm: "Infinity Club knows no age, or social construct. It's for everyone, everywhere. In all ways, always."
Continuing a run of captivating live shows across the US, Europe and Australia, BAMBII will return to Toronto for a hometown show alongside Jamie xx at CODA, followed by a set at Hood Rave NYC and a series of festival dates in Paris.
Mapache share a video for single "What A Summer" - "a reflection on the times we are living through, and the sweet but aching trip back to flashes of life, the half waking half dreaming state in the early morning when memories bubble up unprompted in vivid detail - the sidewalks and houses on your walk to school, the inside of your dad's car, your first love."
"What A Summer" comes from the new and upcoming album Swinging Starsarriving August 18, 2023 an LP of calm, second-nature swagger - the natural result of a band that’s existed in one form or another for its founders’ entire adult lives.
São Paulo based artist João Rocha has announced his debut album as dadá Joãozinho. Unfolding like a genre-agnostic mixtape, tds bem Global (out August 31st) is front-loaded with irresistible and effortless rhythms, careening across musical universes like a psychedelic fever-dream. Lead single “Cuidado!” introduces dadá’s hip hop chops as the analog synth and drum machine track weaves like a commuter in São Paulo during rush hour. “This song is about watching out and taking care of the loved ones around” he explains, “I was dealing with too much moving around, always on transit, and this instability had profound effects on how I was dealing with affection. I realized I needed to be more careful with my people.”
The album title translates to “all too Global,” and chronicles Rocha’s move to the biggest city in South America during a time of intense isolation and toxic politics. Where his previous projects were steeped in Música Popular Brasileira, his new sound “needed to feel more intense,” shoplifting from dub, hip hop, punk, and samba, and inventing a few future styles in the process. While a solo effort, the record features contributions from collaborators new and old, spotlighting the singular artist community Rocha is embedded in.
Sam Blasucci's debut solo album Off My Starsis out now with the focus single "Around the Corner," which he explains, "Life passes by your window so quickly and with luck you can catch a glimpse of its fragility in different ways. Joy and loss break it all down and bring everything back into perspective. They are panoramic and infantile states that breed creation and put you around the corner from everything."
Sam Blasucci 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
When Blasucci was writing the songs that would become Off My Stars, he found himself less focused on the guitar and more gravitated toward a different instrument: piano. The mother of Clay Finch, his Mapache bandmate, was getting rid of one, and so Blasucci took the piano, carefully transporting it to his home in Ojai, California, with the help of a few strong friends, including Farmer Dave Scher of Beachwood Sparks (and a Mapache collaborator). “Farmer Dave wasn’t even wearing shoes,” Blasucci remembers, laughing. Once the piano was safely in there, he became deeply attached, playing on it multiple hours a day: “It’s changed the way I think about music, having all the keys laid out in front of me,” he explains. “Having that sort of changed everything.”
Also inspired by his recent time riding out the pandemic in New Orleans, where the clubs may have closed but the music never stopped, Blasucci used that piano to start writing one of the most inspired batches of songs of his career thus far. New gems like “Turn Yourself Around” and “Sha La La” were developing with a Southern swing and classic songbook sparkle, and when assessing the growing stack of music he was working on, Blasucci realized that there was something about these tunes that wasn’t quite suited for a Mapache record.
Infused with an honest, personal perspective about settling into adult life—about developing as a person and a partner and a family member—these songs were straight from the heart, a clear window, recently Windexed, into the life of one of the most talented members of the L.A.-area underground rock scene. Using just as much inspiration from the music of Ronnie Wood and Sade as the films of Ingmar Bergman and the writing of Brian Doyle, Blasucci started to see a vision of songs that are all “fully autobiographical.”
Blasucci reached out to songwriter and producer Johnny Payne, and the two decamped to Dan Horne’s Lone Palm Studio, the home/studio where Mapache has in the past both recorded and abided in. Blasucci’s direction to Payne—acting as producer and as multi-instrumentalist, performing on everything from shaker to “guitar pancake”—was simple: no pretense, no affect, no Mr. Cool. This approach is most evident through covers on the record—like a stripped-down, achingly beautiful version of Dido’s ubiquitous “Thank You,” or a New Orleans-porch-worthy version of the Cranberries’ classic “Linger.” “There was nothing ironic or gimmicky about wanting to do those,” notes Blasucci. “I just really, really love those songs.”
Also covered on Off My Stars is a raw take on Jimmy Fontana’s timeless ballad “Il Mondo,” sung in its original Italian by Blasucci, who belts it in a performance that ends with him giving it all he has, his voice cracking as he reaches the song’s epic finale. “Il Mondo” is a song that Blasucci particularly wanted to do as a means to get more in touch with his Italian roots—and this wouldn’t be the only way he’d tap into family on the album.
On “Proud of You Dad,” Blasucci dug into his archives for a song that’s he had for some time, originally having written and recorded it just for his father, David Blasucci, a musician who was at one time a touring member in the band Toto, and who has performed and acted in Christopher Guest movies like A Mighty Wind. “If I ever told you this while we were in the same room / I know you would cover your ears and run,” Sam sings over a rustic, campfire acoustic progression. As Sam explains, David was a crucial influence on his taste: “A lot of the underlying styles that influenced the rest of the songs on the record definitely come from what he introduced me to,” Sam says.
But Sam is his own man now, writing the new chapters of his own life with an aw-shucks tone that belies his prolific workload. Even through the pandemic—and even with the ongoing backlogs at pressing plants—Blasucci has still managed to put out beloved Mapache records in each of the last three years, and he and the band have no plans to slow down anytime soon. “I’m definitely the type of artist that is constantly creating,” Sam says, matter of fact. “And I can’t seem to really stop.”
