The guys of Gang Of Youths have well and truly spoiled us this past month, and the good times just keep on rolling because today, the boys from Sydney have dropped a surprise EP titled total serene.
When they shared ‘the angel of 8th avenue’ last month, it truly felt like the beginning of a new era for the band. It was the first bit of new music we’d heard to signal this new era since their 2017 second record Go Farther In Lightness.
The band are launching the EP today alongside a new single, titled ‘unison’.
‘unison’ carries the band’s new vision forward with grace. They expertly cover all corners of the sonic spectrum with ease throughout, melding brass, banjo, beats and even jumping deep into sampling, with borrowed sounds of David Fanshawe’s influential documentation of indigenous Pacific music featured throughout.
“‘unison’ is a deeply important track for us that really signals where the music is headed on the new record,” said frontman Dave Le’aupepe.
“I conceived the song in Samoa, my ancestral homeland. Here we sample and introduce the work of David Fanshawe, who travelled to the Pacific Islands in the 1980s and recorded the most extensive library of indigenous Pacific music anywhere in the world.”
The final track on the EP is a cover of Elbow’s ‘Asleep In The Back’. The band breathe new life into the track, offering a refreshing take on the song with thematically, sits comfortably amongst the release.
“We love Elbow and we thought it was thematically relevant,” he says. “It couldn’t have been anything other than ‘asleep in the back’.”
The EP was entirely produced by the band in their studio in Hackney. Sharing news of the EP to social media this morning, the band also hinted at more music to come.
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Check out the tracklist and the official artwork below.
total serene Tracklist
1. the angel of 8th ave.
2. asleep in the back
3. unison
