LISTEN / SHARE “SPECTACULAR” HERE
WATCH / SHARE “SPECTACULAR” PROMO TEASER HERE
SPECTACULAR DUE OUT FRIDAY VIA COAX RECORDS
PRE-SAVE SPECTACULAR HERE
Photo Credit: Diego Israel | Plastique Famille // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
This Friday, LAL (Nicholas Murray and Rosina Kazi) will release their eighth album and film project, SPECTACULAR, which brings together amazingly talented artists whom they have worked with throughout the group’s 25 year history. Today, they are sharing the album’s title track.
About “Spectacular”, the Kazi says, “In the midst of the pandemic, while investigating my heart and spirit and a broken heart, I realized that we are incredible just in being ourselves, and that we don’t have to live in this attention oriented, hetero patriarchal world, that we are conditioned to believe in, even as Queers or weirdos. That we need to find balance between ourselves and the world around us. That grief is always present but so is joy and that love of the divine, and their love in us, is what’s most important.”
LISTEN / SHARE “SPECTACULAR” HERE
WATCH / SHARE “SPECTACULAR” PROMO TEASER HERE
The video teaser is part of a larger film from director José Garcia that will be released with the album. The project involved locations in Ontario, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. “A surreal series of dream scapes filmed throughout a year,” says Garcia. “The film was built slowly with a community of artists putting their skills together in a series of collaborations for each shoot. Some of the times the shoot involved 15 people and other times just two people. The locations were chosen carefully, with a strong emphasis on wardrobe and costumes matching the natural colours of each location. The season for each shoot was also an important factor.
“One other important factor in this process was to not try to do everything in a short concentrated production schedule as is typical in the industry. Instead by doing sometimes one scene at a time, we were able to reflect and adjust our approach for the next set of scenes. This period of reflection allowed for new people to be added and new energies to flow.”
LISTEN / SHARE “MOMENTS OF RELEASE” HERE
WATCH / SHARE “MOMENTS OF RELEASE” PROMO TEASER HERE
MORE ABOUT SPECTACULAR
Written in the second half of the pandemic, where COVID life continued up and down for two years in Toronto, LAL, after 27 years of being romantic partners, decided that in order to grow and be better to each other and their music, needed to separate.
“#CovidLife! As the pandemic ensued for two long years, taking more and more lives, forcing us inside, yet again, SPECTACULAR began its inception, in the later part of lockdown, in Toronto,” says the band. “As LAL's founding members, we found ourselves going through both public and personal changes that would ultimately lay the building blocks for us to grow as humans but also thrive as artists, and our music would never be the same again.”
LISTEN / SHARE “I PRETEND IT’S RAINING” HERE
On SPECTACULAR, LAL says it was “born out of our time of extreme upheaval and uncertainty, forced us to work together to maintain, and transform each other as well as ourselves, for the better. Our trust in our friendship and love (though changed), had continued to move mountains, and add to the worlds we have already built to nurture and protect us for so long. The lyrics and music that came out of LAL as a result continues to manifest dreams and allow us to do what we do best. Because uplifting our love for each other, our fams and communities continue to find us strength in one another as we keep on being the artists, weirdos and people who find strength in ourselves.
WATCH / SHARE “I PRETEND IT’S RAINING” PROMO TEASER HERE
For SPECTACULAR, LAL partnered with good friend and long-time collaborator Jose Garcia-Lozano to create a ‘Part 2’ to the Meteors Could Come Down album and film, which features new and old collaborators, who are all friends. Artists such as Ange Loft, Tannis Nielsen, Sedina Fiati, Hannia Cheng, B. Soloman, Victoria Mata, Franny Galore-Wngz, Erum Khan, Jaek Eastcott, Kai Jackman, Max Zimmerman, Gautam Pinto, Easy Life Studios, Plastique, Shireen Fahimi, Melissa Vincent, and Noel Nanton of Typotherapy Design, helped make this album and film magical. Also with Yann Gracia who conceptualized, directed, and filmed an amazing live performance video by the quartet, with support from Felix Mendelssohn.
Musicians Viktor kei, Ian de Souza, and Jonathan Adjemian added to the healing process of making this album. Jean Martin, who mixed and helped with the very new sound that Murr has created by intimate recording sessions, the sharing of files online, sampling and working with ROSINA, who wrote most of the songs by themselves, in the early morning.
This project is only a small reflection of the underground network LAL has cultivated for over 25 years. SPECTACULAR aims to celebrate each other, and the world that we have committed to, one that embraces love, equity, community, care, grief, anger, healing, fucked-up-ness and forgiveness.
