About
On June 22nd Gang Gang Dance mark their return with the release of Kazuashita: their new full length record. Building upon the band’s tradition of weaving electronic, rock, world & new age tendencies into a seamless sonic canvas, it serves as the follow up to 2011’s critically acclaimed Eye Contact. At times perfectly meditative yet furiously stirring at others, the album’s title loosely translates to ‘Peace Tomorrow’ and is meant to speak to the time in which it was made.
With Brian DeGraw self producing, Kazuashita was recorded with founding members Lizzi Bougatsos and Josh Diamond in whatever space would play host to them. They were joined by a number of collaborators including drummer / percussionist Ryan Sawyer (who played an integral part in their BOADRUM performances) and Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink / Lansing Dreiden) who was enlisted for additional production and mixing of the album. Visual artist and frequent Gang Gang Dance collaborator Oliver Payne provided a spoken word piece as did the fine artist / poet Jack Walls. Cap n’ Jazz founder Tim Kinsella screamed on the track J Tree alongside Native American Activist & Water Protector Shiyé Bidzîîl’s stirring moment that was captured at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016.
From Gang Gang Dance’s first shows in Galleries hosted by Colin DeLand at American Fine Arts or Gavin Brown, to shows at Steve Lewis’ nightclub Spa in the early 2000s, to their early days sharing stages with Animal Collective & Black Dice, to performances at the Whitney Biennial, Pitti Uomo in Milan, Primavera Sound or Coachella: the band’s two decade career has never acknowledged a barrier between art and music nor any shade of genre there in. They’ve collaborated with the likes of Dash Snow & Dan Colen, Tinchy Stryder and the Boredoms; they’ve taken Ariel Pink on one tour only to then take Total Freedom, Venus X and Hood By Air founder Shane Oliver on the next and have, with this album, now seven releases to their credit.