Hot on the heels of this year’s incredible The Mirage LP, LA-based dream pop band Chasms have been keeping the wheel turning, touring relentlessly across the country with a string of complimentary artists (including Seefeel, Choir Boy, and CHVRCHES). With the year winding to its close, most bands would be content to take a well-deserved rest, yet Chasms are about to embark on a lengthy European tour supporting Boy Harsher. Even more notably, the band has just issued Until it Happens to You, a brand new two-track single on Felte. Listen below:
“Until it Happens to You,” pushes the sonic shift of The Mirage even further and deeper down the rabbit hole, deepening the duo’s flirtations with techno, ambient, and dream pop textures. The track maintains the band’s detached melancholy, with Jess Labrador‘s heavenly vocals, wistful lyrics, and sparsely peppered guitar lines floating above Shannon Sky Madden‘s deep bass grooves. The track’s driving electronic beats evoke memories of a fog-ridden dance floor at 3am, the time where sweaty dance decadence gives way to a more delicious, though no less-passionate energy. This is aided in part due to Telefon Tel Aviv’s Josh Eustis, who mixed the track.
Labrador offered up some additional context on the track’s synthesis:
“Emotional dance music was the goal here. I wanted to combine rhythmic elements of house and dub music – which I listen to so much of – and make them work in a pop structure with guitars, vocals, and emotionality. It can be quite a challenge to make guitars work with electronics. For this one we decided to keep it really simple, as if the guitar is just another synth or sample in a dance track. Then Josh Eustis dubbed it out with delay throws in the mixing process and really took it somewhere else.
It’s a very upbeat song, but the lyrics are rather heavy and balance out any glimpse of sunshine. They explore the empathy gap most of us have when it comes to trauma and abuse. I was examining my own empathy gap in relation to a friend who had shared an experience with me a long time ago that I initially (and very regretfully) did not take seriously until years later, when I found myself in a similar situation. Prior to that, I just did not and could not understand. After my own painful experience, I felt so isolated and easily dismissed. I kept thinking, “This is what that person felt like. No one knows what it feels like…until it happens to you.”
The single is backed with a rework that’s even more spaced out and hypnotic, pushing the track’s boundaries into the ether; there and back again with deeper, more cavernous textures and subtle Detroit house nods. It’s only a matter of preference as to which is the superior version of the track, as both are equally emotive and effective.
As mentioned previously, the band will embark on a European tour supporting Boy Harsher. The tour kicks off next week in Germany and will last for a month. Check out the full tour listing as well as artwork and purchasing/stream links below:
Chasms- Until it Happens to You
- Until it Happens to You
- Until it Happens to You (Chasms Rework)
Purchase via Bandcamp
Stream via Spotify
EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
- 11.20 Köln, DE @ Luxor *
- 11.21 Hamburg, DE @ Molotow *
- 11.22 Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen *
- 11.23 Gothenburg, SE @ Musikens Hus *
- 11.24 Stockholm, SE @ Slakt Kyrkan *
- 11.26 Helsinki, FI @ Kuudes Linja *
- 11.27 Tallinn, EE @ Sveta Baar *
- 11.28 Riga, LV @ Depo *
- 11.29 Vilnius, LT @ Loftas *
- 11.30 Warsaw, PL @ Pogłos *
- 12.01 Prague, CZ @ Fuchs2 *
- 12.02 Berlin, DE @ Kesselhaus *
- 12.03 Berlin, DE @ Festsaal *
- 12.04 Leipzig, DE @ Conne Island *
- 12.05 Munich, DE @ Ampere *
- 12.07 Madrid, ES @ Trashcan Music Club *
- 12.08 Paris, FR @ Espace B *
- 12.10 London, UK @ O2 Academy Islington ~
- 12.12 Glasgow, UK @ Nice N Sleazy
- 12.13 Sheffield, UK @ Network
* w/ Boy Harsher
~ A Dead Forest Index (Solo set)
Photo by Priscilla C. Scott
