NEW LP STARDUST COMING ON NEXT DOOR RECORDS OCTOBER 2, 2020
WATCH AND SHARE “CRAZY LOVE” HERE
PRE-ORDER STARDUST HERE
Photo Credit: Melissa Richards // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Luka Kuplowsky’s Stardust – his first full-length release for Next Door Records – is out in one month, on October 2, 2020, and today he is sharing the subtly lush single “Crazy Love”. With its sparse instrumentation, “Crazy Love” allows the cinematic poetry of Kuplowsky’s songwriting to shine. The rhythm section, Josh Cole on bass and Evan Cartwright on drums, undulates with the vocal trio of Kuplowsky, Bernice’s Robin Dann and Bahamas’ Felicity Williams. All of these elements swirl together with Thom Gill’s flawlessly orchestrated guitar and synth lines, growing like the crest of a perfect wave as Kuplowsky sings out the final chorus. Fittingly, Kuplowsky explains:
Written in an instant.
"Love" can be "crazy" when it lacks control and direction. The voice of the song is impelled and urged towards someone, but keeps qualifying this push with a pulling back. The song is the dance of the psyche towards its eventual embrace.
We recorded 3 takes of this song and kept eliminating notes ‘til we had all this hanging space.
The arrangement moves like water; swirling, shimmering, circling, crashing.
WATCH AND SHARE “CRAZY LOVE” HERE
Animated and directed by Sonia Beckwith-Cole, in the video, “water is a powerful force that represents love and change and facilitates the physical transformations of our character from human to dolphin to bird,” says the director. “The water overtakes and overpowers him, while imbuing him with impossible and magical abilities, sending him through a dance-like cycle with the sea, the rain and the clouds.”
“It was such a joy to work with Sonia,” says Luka. “She approaches animation as a medium that is malleable and water-like. Her method was so similar to how we approached the record. I like to imagine this video as the album art coming to life. It's a beautiful companion and extension to the Stardust universe.”
Kuplowsky’s last single, the weirdo-art-rock track “Positive Push”, was a compelling shift from the folk-oriented first single “Never Get Tired (of Loving You)”. The song is dominated by a driving bass line with synth flourishes that, together, are reminiscent of Stereolab’s early work. The contrast of these songs perfectly encapsulates what makes Luka Kuplowsky such an exciting musical voice. His vision, and that of his collaborators, including members of U.S. Girls, Andy Shauf, Bahamas, Julia Jacklin and more, is never limited to genre.
WATCH AND SHARE “POSITIVE PUSH” HERE
While not pining nor sugar coating, Kuplowsky’s first single off of Stardust, “Never Get Tired (of Loving You)”, is a love song, looking at love as an intrinsic component for growth, a solidarity between two people hurtling through the chaotic present. It’s not something light or easy. Rather, this love is, as Luka puts it, “a patient attuning.” Gold Flake Paint called it “a tender, almost opulent display… a swirling mix of jazz and folk, a Destroyer-esque melding of glorious vocals and glowing instrumentation that creates its own book of superlatives.”
LISTEN AND SHARE “NEVER GET TIRED (OF LOVING YOU)” HERE
With his wonderful new album Stardust, Luka Kuplowsky makes a refreshing argument for the relevance of acoustic music as a place to hold thought; an open space to place impeccably chosen words, ideas and images. A young songwriter with a calm, conversational delivery and an effortless, un-showy grasp of poetry; Kuplowsky humbly picks up the same threads of inquiry that did Cohen, asking the big questions about love, meaning and consciousness. Musically, Stardust triangulates between Hejira and Late for the Sky, finding connections between the purity of simple melody and the tangled modulations of jazz. Luka Kuplowsky makes a music of contemplation, a music alive to the everyday possibilities of epiphany and revelation, an unhurried music that moves with the gentle and curving rhythms of thought.
From the first note, Stardust feels fresh and immediate, and this immediacy is no accident. The album was recorded in just two days, in a studio with almost no isolation, with an all-star band of musicians drawn from the rich jazz and improvisational scenes of Toronto. Vocals and nearly everything else was recorded live, in an act of pure trust, and the album truly captures a performance, an assembly of players discovering the songs in real time.
~ written by Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station)
STARDUST TRACKLIST
1. Do I Have to Be
2. Never Get Tired (of Loving You)
3. Stardust
4. Crazy Love
5. Rough Times
6. City By My Window
7. Positive Push
8. Sayonara Blue
9. Skyline
10. Stardust (Reprise)
11. Be New