News Of The Universe

Description

Guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland learns to embrace a changing world with unconditional love on News of the Universe, the new album from California rock band La Luz (and their first on Sub Pop!). News of the Universe is a record born from calamity, a dark and beautiful psychedelic work that reflects Shana's experience, having seen her world collapse following a breast cancer diagnosis just two years after the birth of her son. It is also a portrait of a band in transition, marking the first appearance of drummer Audrey Johnson and the last for long-time members, bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandahl, whose contributions add a bittersweet touch to an album that is both an elegy for an old world and a cosmic roadmap to a new strange world. Sonically, the album is all about urgency. The songs seem to stumble over themselves, as if trying to escape the apocalypse. The synthetic sounds used on their last album (La Luz, 2021) to mimic the languorous crackle of a summer day in the countryside are now silver comet tails, bursts of space dust, star showers. Unapologetic, vulnerable, feminine, and undeniably triumphant, News of the Universe is another stunning album from a band so reliable that it may have led people to forget just how much La Luz is truly a pioneer: women of color in indie music carving their own path by following their own artistic star in galaxies beyond current musical trends. Produced by Maryam Qudus (Spacemoth).