Featured Artist News category interest

New York City Chillwave pioneers Small Black are returning with their first new album in five years. Cheap Dreams, described as a “Long Island gothic surf epic,” will be released on April 9th, 2021 via their new label, the vaporwave upstart 100% Electronica. To celebrate the announcement, the band has shared their newest single, “Duplex,” a song that dreamily captures an abstract portrayal of urban loneliness and small town parking lot isolation. Accompanying the single is the Ryan Draybuck directed video, a stop motion film that brings the new album’s cover art to life. Listen to “Duplex” here and watch the video above. Pre-order for Cheap Dreams is available now HERE and you can also snag a limited edition Red Rain® Vinyl via 100% Electronica HERE.

“We finished writing andamp; recording ‘Duplex’ way before the world shut down last March,” says lead singer Josh Kolenik, “but the lyrics seemed oddly prophetic to me as we were doing the final mix. ‘Walking in the house alone - Pray on the ottoman - Amen for one’ I was originally thinking about the absurdity of feeling alone amid the 9 million of us in NYC and yet suddenly, we were all isolated without much of a choice in the matter. In those weeks spent listening to the quiet out our Brooklyn windows, only broken by the occasional siren, unsure where the city or the world was headed, the song took on a new meaning.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISE HERE!

Reach tens of thousands of Musicians, Industry Influencers, Festivals, Talent Buyers, Record Company Execs, and Fans daily!
Ad rates start at only $9.99 per month

ADVERTISE HERE!

ArtistAndFan Business Member

The band had previously released the first single from the album, “Tampa,” which Gorilla Vs. Bear said “finds Small Black at their most widescreen and evocative, and it shimmers with the kind of wistful, youthful nostalgia that the group has always been so good at conjuring.” Stereogum called the track “'a thumping and appropriately dreamy return from the band.”

Recommended Playlist: Indie Rock Joyride

Founded in 2009 Brooklyn, Small Black were at the forefront of the chillwave scene of the early 2010s. Making their way through three LPs and multiple incarnations of the band, they became a touring machine across America and overseas throughout the last decade. After five years, Cheap Dreams finds the band taking stock on where they’re from and where they’ve ended up. The album pays tribute to Kolenik’s uncle, a passionate surfer whose attic in Long Island was used for making their first album. Shortly after the release of their 2015 album, he passed from a stroke while at the beach and a good chunk of the record is about his life and how it reflects on the band’s choice to try to live out theirs as musicians.