La Luz

Praise for La Luz:

"At once dizzyingly infinite and intensely personal." ***** - Shindig!

 "’In The Country’ is an extremely cool piece of spectral, shimmering folk-rock... it absolutely nails its out-of-time pop-psychedelia sound." - Stereogum

"La Luz emerge as what they clearly always were -- terrifically talented makers of spectral psych pop." - Brooklyn Vegan

"They have returned as a band truly at the top of their game." - The Line of Best Fit 9/10

“…this is a record curiously out of time, neither tapping into any kind of zeitgeist nor harking back to be particular scene; rather it stands apart, a kaleidoscopic yet subtle take on eclectic ‘60s sounds…great record.” - Uncut

"La Luz have evolved from an adorable surf-pop outfit into something more focused, finessed, and penetrating." - CLASH

La Luz - the band led by Shana Cleveland - has released a gorgeous new single today, “I’ll Go With You.” La Luz is at their dreamiest here, with sparkly instrumentals and soothing vocals, “I’ll Go With You” is a moment of tranquility. The new track is off their forthcoming album News of The Universe, out May 24th via Sub Pop, and follows the two previously released singles “Strange World” and most recently, “Poppies”.

"This song is heavily influenced by Yanti Bersaudara, a group of Indonesian sisters who released some of my very favorite music originally released in the mid 60s and early 70s,” says lead singer Shana Cleveland on the new single. “Lyrically, this song is a retelling of a dream I had one night when I had gone to bed with the melody of this song in my head. I had some different words in mind, but this sweet little romance dream took over” she continues.

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, News of the Universe 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. 

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.

Sonically, the record is all urgency. Songs trip over themselves as if trying to outrun the apocalypse. 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 Qudus (Spacemoth), the all-female environment allowed Cleveland to feel safe tapping into difficult places and expressing hard emotions women are socialised to suppress. 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?