La Luz – the band led by Shana Cleveland – has released their incredible new album News of The Universe, via Sub Pop.
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 colour 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.
La Luz also share the music video for the song that is truly the heart of the album, “Always In Love.”
On the track and its music video, Shana Cleveland shares “To me this song is the heart of the album. I get emotional every time I hear it. Lyrically it’s about realising that love is the only thing that matters and that it’s always a choice that I’m able to make. It’s hard to explain how huge that is, but if you get it you get it. In the guitar solo that closes the song I can hear myself blasting through all the fear and stress of the year before, the most difficult time of my life, and moving past all of that propelled by the dedication to live in love. The video for this song is inspired by the Japanese camp horror film House.”
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.
La Luz will be touring North America, Europe, and the UK in support of News of the Universe, and the first run of dates will kick off May 23 in Barcelona. The band’s first show stateside is Record Release Party on May 30 at The Crocodile in Seattle, WA. Their touring goes into full swing starting on September 26 with a show in Chicago, IL, stopping at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere on October 9, before concluding with a 2-night run at Lodge Room in Los Angeles, CA, on November 8th and 9th.
News of The Universe tracklisting:
1. Reaching Up to the Sun
2. Strange World
3. Dandelions
4. Poppies
5. Good Luck With Your Secret
6. Always in Love
7. Close Your Eyes
8. I’ll Go With You
9. Blue Moth Cloud Shadow
10. News of the Universe
11. Moon in Reverse
12. Blue Jay
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 colour 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?
"News of The Universe" by La Luz - this album is a powerful testament to love and personal transformation, radiating an otherworldly charm that makes it a bizarrely beautiful standout in indie rock."
News of the Universe
La Luz Tour Dates
24/05 Madrid, ES @ Tomavistas Festival
25/05 London, UK @ Wide Awake Festival
30/05 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile (Record Release Show)
27/07 Portland, OR @ Project Pabst
30/08 Brighton, UK @ Brighton Psych Fest
31/08 Manchester, UK @ Manchester Psych Fest
01/09 Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh Psych Fest
03/09 Bristol, UK @ Strange Brew
05/09 Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
06/09 Sart-Messire-Guillaume, BE @ SMG Music Fest
07/09 Asten-Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
08/09 Amsterdam, NL @ Indiestadt x Sugar Mountain @ Paradiso
10/09 Cologne, DE @ Bumann & SOHN
11/09 Hamburg, DE @ Prinzenbar
12/09 Berlin, DE @ Badehaus
13/09 Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
14/09 Zürich, DE @ Bogen
26/09 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
27/09 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
28/09 St. Paul, MM @ Turf Club
30/09 St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
01/10 Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
02/10 Nashville, TN @ The End
03/10 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Purgatory
04/10 Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
05/10 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall
06/10 Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
08/10 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
09/10 Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere – Hall
10/10 Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
11/10 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
12/10 Toronto, ON @ Adelaide Hall
13/10 Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch
28/10 Denver, CO @ Marquis
30/10 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
31/10 Boise, ID @ The Olympic
03/11 Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
06/11 Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
07/11 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
08/11 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
09/11 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room