News

Chromeo announces Date Night live album

Chromeo announces Date Night live album

Chromeo are set to release their first ever live album, Date Night: Chromeo Live!, June 25 via Last Gang Records. The album features live versions of songs spanning the band’s entire career, recorded on their last pre-pandemic tour tour, a 2019 headline run of iconic U.S. venues like Colorado’s Red Rocks and the Hollywood Bowl. “Don’t Sleep [live in Washington, D.C.]” debuts today as the first taste of the album.

**Click to save/stream “Don’t Sleep [live in Washington, D.C]”

**Pre-save/pre-add Date Night: Chromeo Live!

“We always toured as a duo, but on our last run, we put together a band of insane musicians,” says David “Dave 1” Macklovitch. “We told them ‘let’s make our stuff sound like late ‘80s, early ‘90s New Power Generation. It gave a new life to our entire catalog. We had a blast—it was over the top, but then again so is pretty much everything we do.”

In the height of the pandemic, out of sheer nostalgia, Chromeo began to sort through recordings from the tour. After picking favorites versions of each song, they realized that they had a live album on their hands. Date Night captures the band in full swing, at the height of their funky superpowers, delivering 90 minutes of pure, uncut funk—blissfully unaware of the sixteen-month shutdown ahead of them.

The past year has been a surprisingly full one for Chromeo, a band usually on the road for more than 150 shows a year. Last spring, they recorded a quarantine-themed EP off the cuff whilst holed up in their Burbank studio and released it in the spring—donating over $80,000 in proceeds to Know Your Rights Camp’s COVID relief fund. When tragedy struck in Patrick “P-Thugg” Gemayel’s native Lebanon—the massive explosion in Beirut that destroyed an entire district—they quickly scrambled to put out a merch capsule and donated over $10,000 to recovery efforts. Now the plan is to donate proceeds from Date Night’s vinyl and merch sales to Touring Professionals Alliance, which provides help to crew members, venue staff and other members of the live music industry affected by the pandemic.  

Chromeo also found the time to create a record label, Juliet Records, to put out music from like-minded friends and artists they admire. Releases in the label’s first year include records from future-R&B star and fashion icon Ian Isiah (which Chromeo produced), New York avant-jazz ensemble Onyx Collective and Montreal keyboard virtuoso Anomalie. They’ve also turned their attention to producing for a handful of outside artists for the first time, with releases planed through 2021.

Date Night: Chromeo Live! is a document of a band nearly 20 years into their storied career and a foreshadowing of what’s to come from Dave 1 and P-Thugg, inseparable friends and collaborators and forever guardians of the groove.

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Chromeo releases first ever live album

Chromeo releases first ever live album
Chromeo’s first ever live album, Date Night: Chromeo Live!, is out today. The album features live versions of songs spanning the band’s entire career,

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Last Gang welcomes Keys N Krates

Last Gang welcomes Keys N Krates

Today, JUNO Award-winning Toronto-based trio, Keys N Krates, connect with German singer-songwriter, Bibi Bourelly, for their latest single, “Take It Off”. Bouncy and engrossing, Take It Off combines sleek house-inflected electronic production with Bourelly’s pop-centric vocal hooks. Coming on the heels of signing a global deal with Last Gang Records, “Take It Off” is the group’s first new song since 2020’s remix of Double Dutch, featuring Dai Burger.

**Click to save/stream “Take It Off (feat. Bibi Bourelly)”

“We’ve known BiBi for years and try to do sessions with her every time we touch down in L.A.  She has a whole style that’s her own with an unmatched energy and quirkiness that we’ve always loved,” Keys and Krates says of this special collab.  “Last year we were with her in the studio and really wanted to try making a dance record with her.  We played her this Chicago house piano line with a killer bassline Matisse had just laid down and she just went in and threw down this crazy vocal line with the most feel-good catchy hook; all off the top of her head, and kinda based on a conversation we were having with her five minutes before.  The song at a first listen just sounds like the most fun party shit, but she’s actually talking about dating men who are emotionally unavailable and trying to get them to open up. “

In addition, the group announces their global signing with Last Gang Records.

Last Gang is honoured to welcome the legendary Keys N Krates to the label,” says Chris Moncada, Senior Vice President, eOne Music / General Manager, Last Gang Records. “We are excited for fans to hear what we feel is the bands best work ever, with some spectacular collabs attached.  We are privileged to be their trusted partners in getting it out to the world.”

Keys N Krates add, “We are stoked to be doing this new project with Last Gang Recs.  They’ve always been known for putting out artists we respect that don’t fit into a box and are kind of strange, but also weirdly accessible and that’s how we like to see ourselves.  They are also from Toronto, so there’s a kinship there in terms of how we all work and our cultural sensibilities which is bless when making sure we are all on the same page.”

The group’s most recent full-length release, 2019’s A Beat Tape For Your Friends, included the original version of Double Dutch, and was coined the “beat tape of the summer” by Exclaim! upon its release. In 2020, the group released an edit package they made of Frank Ocean, Lauryn Hill, and Snoh Aalegra to support the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

 

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Low Hum shares new single + video “All I Know”

Low Hum shares new single + video “All I Know”

Low Hum is excited to share “All I Know,” the latest single from the forthcoming sophomore album Nonfiction, due out Fall 2021 on Last Gang Records. The song comes with a new music video directed by Taylor Brown & Brad Scott. “‘All I Know,’ explains Collin Desha, the Hawaiian-born, Los Angeles-based musician behind Low Hum, “explores unconditional love and how sometimes the things you love can be the most difficult landscape to navigate.” The song was also the first track recorded with the album’s co-producer Jon Joseph, and served to establish the tonal direction for the whole recording process for the album. Low Hum will play “All I Know” and more on May 20th for a special “Low Hum Live At Sunset Sound” livestream show (watch the trailer here) via Veeps. Tickets available now at lowhum.veeps.com.

Watch the music video for “All I Know” on YouTube

Stream “All I Know” https://ffm.to/all-i-know

Nonfiction is the follow up to Low Hum’s 2019 debut album Room To Breathe, which garnered recognition from NPR Music, KCRW, Relix and Clash Magazine while drawing comparisons to the stylings of Tame Impala and beloved UK group The Beta Band. The new single “All I Know” comes on the heels of Nonfiction’s lead single “Escape,” which found itself on New Music Friday lists from NPR Music, SPIN, and featured on Spotify’s “Modern Psychedelia” while being praised by Buzzbands.LA as “a playfully woozy yet decidedly immersive psych-rock jam.

Watch the Bianca Poletti directed music video for “Escape” on YouTube

Low Hum have found a global audience on YouTube and Spotify, with 10s of millions of organic streams among music fanatics on message boards and social media. A phenomenon that caught Desha off guard as his YouTube subscribers and streams increased exponentially in the months that followed Room To Breathe’s release. “I first started to see videos that transcribed a few of my songs in Spanish and I was humbled by it,” says Desha. “Eventually it started to reach India, South Korea, Australia, Brazil… I was so impressed by the positivity in the comment section between everyone I became ecstatic my music was the thing bringing this little online community together.” 

The forthcoming new album Nonfiction, was recorded and co-produced with Jon Joseph, and expands upon Desha’s kaleidoscopic Lo-fi meets Hi-fi futurism: a mixture of oceanic tranquility, dreampop-like sensibilities, heavy fuzzed-out riffs juxtaposed alongside melodious synth and vocals with refreshing punch. Low Hum, Desha says “was always meant to be my creative refuge, a place for me to escape my own reality and give me a sense of freedom” and is happy it has motivated those who listen “to feel a sense of community and that we are all in this together.” Stay tuned for further news and music from the forthcoming album Nonfiction in the coming months.

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Mobley unveils Young & Dying in the Occident Supreme

Mobley unveils Young & Dying in the Occident Supreme

Today, Last Gang Records is thrilled to share “Young & Dying in the Occident Supreme,” the highly anticipated new release from Mobley.

The full record is now available here. Also out today is the music video for new single “Mate,” which Mobley wrote, directed and edited himself. 

“I picked a hell of a time to put out a record,” said Mobley. “We released the first single and then three weeks later the United States was struck by the first major fallout of the pandemic. The record, touring and my whole professional life were put on hold. In the time since, I’m afraid that the themes that pushed me to write ‘Young & Dying…’ have only grown more relevant.”

“My country, often so smugly certain of its supremacy, has become the incompetent, intransigent epicenter of the plague. For many, the past year has been a painful repudiation of the notion that ‘the West’ (or ‘Occident,’ as my title puts it) owes its global dominance to some kind of cultural superiority. The record is all about the need to abandon that harmful delusion.”

Mobley notes that psychedelic new single “Mate”—the only love song on the record—represents a bit of a tonal break from the other songs in the collection. Said Mobley, “A lot of my songs speak to the problems facing humanity or things we need to do to make the world better. At the end of the day, though, love is what motivates all of it for me, so I wanted to represent that. I wrote this song for my wife and I wrote it in secret. I didn’t want her to hear it until it was done, so I asked her to run a bunch of errands one day to buy myself some time. I raced to track the whole song in a couple hours and surprised her with it when she came home. I tweaked the mix a little after that, but what I played for her that day is pretty much what ended up on the record.”

In terms of the dreamy video concept for “Mate,” which features a couple in a long-distance relationship floating on a bed revolving in space, Mobley said: “I think the pithiest way to describe it is a ‘lockdown love story.’ We explore the development of their relationship and their desire for contact. The themes should be familiar to anyone who’s been in a long-distance relationship, but I especially wanted to nod to the circumstances people are facing during the pandemic.”

To support the new EP, Mobley will be kicking off a virtual tour on Thursday, Feb. 25. The Devil In A Daydream tour is a series of nine virtual shows performed in unconventional natural and urban spaces, uniquely intimate and captured on a cinematic scale. With support from YETI and Guayaki Yerba Mate, the tour will also feature performances by an all-star roster of artists the likes of Shallou, Lawrence, Magic Giant, City of the Sun, Spencer Ludwig, Sarah Jaffe, James Petralli (of White Denim), Michigander and many more. Mobley and these artists are donating all monies raised to support partnering venues, as well as mutual aid organization the DAWA Fund.

“Mobley’s latest album is heavy with social commentary – is as timely as it is powerful” – Austin Monthly

“Mobley isn’t just a talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He’s a restless all-around creative who has channeled his technical and artistic skills into a one-man, perpetual-motion stage show…” – American Songwriter

“Mobley makes upbeat-sounding, … pop-rock songs with a political conscience.” – PopMatters

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Noble Oak releases Stories EP

Noble Oak releases Stories EP

Vancouver’s electro dream-pop artist Noble Oak today releases his latest project, Stories. A veritable return to his musical beginnings, Stories is an instrumental piano EP.  To celebrate the release Noble Oak also shared the stunning performance video for the latest single, “The Sun Dancing in Her Hair” – view below.

***Stories EP is available now on all music services.

Speaking on Stories Noble Oak’s Patrick Fiore says, “These 5 pieces are a return to the beginnings of my musical world. Since about as far back as I can remember, I have sat at the piano and played whatever came into my mind. Occasionally I would record what I played, and these pieces are 5 of those such recordings.

Inspired by moments and visions of the world, they are the most pure offerings I can create at a given time, played upon my most fluent instrument. There are moments where words fail and music speaks; my chosen language has always been the piano. My hope is that these sounds will be a place for your mind to explore, and find solace, in the same way I have been able to for so long.”

Stories has already been tipped by CBC Music as one of their Canadian Albums We Can’t wait to hear in 2021 and follows Noble Oak’s LP Horizon, released last summer. Lauded for breathing “fresh air into the electronic dream pop world” (Exclaim), Horizon marked Noble Oak’s debut for Last Gang Records andis an enchanting collection of post-chillwave pop, a sumptuous suite of sativa songs for hazy, lazy days.

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Rhye welcomes audiences Home with new album

Rhye welcomes audiences Home with new album

Today, Rhye — the JUNO Award-winning project of Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based musician, Michael Milosh – welcomes audiences Home – the new album, out now on Last Gang Records. The highly anticipated record arrives with great acclaim as it presents timely focus to ‘home’ as being central to creativity and community.

Listen to the album everywhere here.

Home is the follow-up to 2019’s piano-driven, Spirit, and 2018’s JUNO Award-winning Blood (JUNO nominated for Adult Alternative Album of the Year, JUNO winner of Album Artwork of the Year). Milosh has been sharing his story and central themes on Home and its many sonic and physical facets through in-depth interviews with Kreative Kontrol, Le Soleil, Northern Transmissions, and CBC Metro Morning, with praise from Exclaim!, Vancouver Sun, The Independent and The New Yorker, amongst others. As presented on previous singles, Come In Closer, Black Rain, Beautiful, and Helpless, every element of Home is intentional and meant to reverberate on a higher extra-sensory plane. This sense of purpose is emphasized through the album’s visuals, all directed and produced by Milosh and partner Genevieve Medow-Jenkins.

Since the release of Rhye’s 2013 debut, Woman, Milosh mostly lived on the road, playing up to 100 shows a year and decamping in Toronto, Montreal, Thailand, the Netherlands, Germany and Los Angeles. On the heels of some major life changes,

including a new relationship with Medow-Jenkins, he yearned for a more permanent space, a balm for the restless spirit and a place to simply be. It’s familiar in its synthesis of propulsive beats, orchestral flourishes, piano ruminations and sultry, gender- nonconforming vocals, but never have they sounded more cohesive or alive.

Over the last two years, Milosh and Medow-Jenkins have produced a series of live events called Secular Sabbath, centered on consciousness-raising ambient music, meditation, massage and community, recently broadcast from their actual home throughout the pandemic. Acting as a space for Milosh’s improvisational experimentation with voice and sound, Secular Sabbath in turn inspired much of the work on this new record, creating a fluid correlation between music and home.

Written throughout 2019 and early 2020, Home was recorded at United Recording Studios, Revival at The Complex (Earth, Wind, & Fire), as well as Milosh’s home studio, and mixed by Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, Interpol, My Bloody Valentine).

The album is bookended by celestial cantos sung by the Danish National Girls’ Choir, who Rhye performed with at a landmark concert in Denmark in 2017. The choir flew to LA to record with him for one day. It’s reflective of Milosh’s own experiences singing in choir as a boy, his entry point to the path that has informed his distinctive vocals. “I’m always trying to always accomplish musical goals that are connected to the way I listened to and interact with music as a child,” Milosh says. The sentiment also underscores a broader, less obvious, but no less important theme echoed through his new record: No matter where life takes us, we can always go home.

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Noble Oak shares “Little Things Left Behind”

Noble Oak shares “Little Things Left Behind”

In a return to his musical beginnings, the Vancouver’s electro dream-pop artist Noble Oak today shares the second single, “Little Things Left Behind”, taken from his new instrumental piano EP Stories, set for release on February 12th 2021.

“Little Things Left Behind” is available now via all music services.

Speaking on his new work Noble Oak’s Patrick Fiore says, “These 5 pieces are a return to the beginnings of my musical world. Since about as far back as I can remember, I have sat at the piano and played whatever came into my mind. Occasionally I would record what I played, and these pieces are 5 of those such recordings.

Fiore found inspiration from moments and visions of the world and played them upon what he describes as his most fluent instrument. “There are moments where words fail and music speaks; my chosen language has always been the piano, says Fiore, “My hope is that these sounds will be a place for your mind to explore, and find solace, in the same way I have been able to for so long.”

Stories has already been tipped by CBC Music as one of their Canadian Albums We Can’t wait to hear in 2021 and follows Noble Oak’s LP Horizon, released earlier this summer. Lauded for breathing “fresh air into the electronic dream pop world” (Exclaim), Horizon marked Noble Oak’s debut for Last Gang Records andis an enchanting collection of post-chillwave pop, a sumptuous suite of sativa songs for hazy, lazy days.

Read more