News

De Lux x Somethings Never Break

In anticipation of the LA duo’s upcoming fourth album, De Lux are releasing a string of singles and two EPs. The first EP, titled “Uneven”, contains three new songs brimming with a newfound playful confidence that is the result of throwing out the old playbook and embracing the uncomfortable unknown.

The second single from the EP - "Something’s Never Break" is about old habits dying hard. The lyrics tow the line between earnesty and irony throughout the song, making you wonder if they’re sung with a wink or a nod. The band’s special brand of cheeky social commentary rewards the listener with some of their best one liners:

“I hope one day/I can make enough money/So I can have an opinion/And I don't have to fake it.”

It’s got a trance inducing off kilter synth intro and guitars that sound like they’re melting in slow motion as vocalist Sean Guerin puts on a character that sounds like an extension of the sort of musical theatre he performed in past songs like "Oh Man the Future" and "Music Snob." While his character can’t seem to change his life, the song might change yours.

Lionel Boy x Kam Highway

The Hawaiian native and Long Beach based songwriter Lionel Boy has announced that his debut self-titled album will be released on May 14, 2021 via Innovative Leisure. To celebrate the announcement, he shares with us his second single of 2021, “Kam Highway”. 
The synth heavy and ethereal track is the follow up to the laid back “Flower Girl,” released in March. “Kam Highway” highlights Lionel’s sultry baritone capabilities and is set against a reverb-drenched backdrop of airy synth textures, extra low bass, and a heavy beat laced with trap elements.
“Back home in Hawaii, one of the main highways we have is called Kam Highway.” Lionel Boy shares. “For me, it connected the two places I grew up in—Waialua and Wahiawa. It’s my favorite drive in the whole world. I hadn’t done much previous work on my own with synths or beat making but it was something I’d been wanting to try. When I started working on the song, it sounded a lot like a long, dark road and the first one that came to mine was the one I’d been taking my whole life.”
The visual companion to “Kam Highway” was directed by Joanna Nguyen. “‘Kam Highway’ was shot over a span of three days on my home island of Oahu, Hawaii by my awesome friend Joanna Nguyen. It’s funny - I grew up in “paradise” wanting nothing more than to escape it. I’ve driven many roads looking for an exit only to realize—you can’t run from what’s inside.”
Pre-order Lionel Boy HERE.
Nick Waterhouse x Promenade Blue

"Nick Waterhouse is someone you misjudge at your peril." - Clash Magazine

LA-based troubadour Nick Waterhouse takes a spiritual look to the past on new album Promenade Blue due out this Friday on Innovative Leisure and co-produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Devendra Banhart). In Nick’s musical and lyrical world, blue is a refraction of his life and memories — shadowing a deep, spiritual San Francisco that fostered his musical vocabulary but has now been stamped out irrevocably; evoking the endless tours, marathon recording sessions, and highs and lows of success he’s experienced in his decade-long career; conjuring romances that were doomed, loves that lingered, and hope for future days of parity and partnership; summoning spirits of people who have gone but permeate his mind forever.  The world of Promenade Blue represents rebirth and reinvigoration as well as a clarity of purpose.

De Lux x On & On (Till The End Of Us)

On De Lux’s first two albums the duo tackled the innocence of youth and generational anxiety. Their third album, More Disco Songs About Love, smashed them together to create an ambitious party record about all sorts of stuff you didn’t know you could love. This go-around Sean and Isaac are still funny and profound and their sound remains easy to groove to, but the band is more influenced by the fun 80’s new wave of the Tom Tom Club and the experimentation and imagery of The Clash’s “Sandinista!” than cerebral DFA era disco.

In anticipation of the LA duo’s upcoming fourth album, De Lux are releasing a string of singles and two EPs. The first EP, titled “Uneven”, contains three new songs brimming with a newfound playful confidence that is the result of throwing out the old playbook and embracing the uncomfortable unknown. After writing, performing, recording, and producing three albums themselves, they’ve traded their typically hermetic recording process at their Burbank studio for a more collaborative experience. This time Sean and Isaac invited the members of their live band to record to tape at Jonny Bell’s Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach, CA. While De Lux has always been able to write immediately danceable and quirky pop songs with a strong dose of wit, these recordings get the sonic boost they deserve to match the quality and camaraderie of their intense and acclaimed live performances. 

"On and On (Till the End of Us)" is the first song on the EP. It starts with an unrelenting hiccup of a beat followed by disarming 8 bit beeps and boops before fidgety Chic style guitars and otherworldly strings come in that sound as if they could be the soundtrack to an intergalactic mission to save your home planet from being obliterated. Sean Guerin’s faraway sounding vocals are delivered with an urgency that makes you feel like you’re the world’s last hope.

Nick Waterhouse x B. Santa Ana, 1986

“I’ve spent a great deal of my time wandering through the world, and being mistaken for coming from somewhere else. Certain people seem better at branding themselves based on a sort of... spectacular regional mythos. And what I have observed in regards to my own pedigree is what I could only describe as a lifelong superficial conception of the Californian identity. I got to thinking - what’s a regional identity anyways? Especially in this digitally flattened era. How funny, I thought, would it be to turn this little droll talking blues I had been demoing into an off-handed delivered ‘anthem’ chorus (“uh, I don’t mind)? How Californian?”

Nick Waterhouse debuts single "B. Santa Ana, 1986" with SPIN Magazine “A Day in the Life” feature.