UK’s Five-piece CITIZENS! Video Premiere via Jay Z’s Life + Times
Debut Here We Are Produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos out 10/9 via Kitsuné / Cooperative Music
Photo credit: Frederike Helwig
FREE download: “True Romance” (Gildas Kitsuné Club Night Remix) HERE
NME’s #2 Hottest Band In The World Embarks on First Ever American Tour + CMJ (dates below)
“Disturbingly danceable electropop with a dash of Bowie and a glance of Franz…” – NME
Citizens! reveal their intensely romantic and sexy music video ‘True Romance” with Jay Z’s Life + Times today HERE. The band contributes their inspiration for the “True Romance” video to the image they got from a couple kissing at the Vancouver riots. Much like this scene, the song and video represent “the way in which we look for the intense personal moment to triumph over the doom and chaos of the world at large.” The captivating video was directed by the French collective We are from LA.
London’s five-piece Citizens! recorded their11-track-debut in Scotland last year with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand. The result is Hear We Are. After touring Europe and playing at the major festivals, the band is eager to release their debut in the States on October 9th via Kitsuné / Cooperative Music and their first ever American tour will start October 11th in Los Angeles.
Earlier Citizens!’s released a “True Romance” video that showed off their elegant take on style HERE, which is composed with footage of the 1987 Telugu movie “Pasivadi Pranam” starring the legendary Chiranjeevi.
The band is going on their first-ever American tour as part of the OOHLALA! Tour with Tomorrow’s World (Jean-Benoit Dunckel from Air and Lou Hayter), Housse De Racket and Lescop will play exclusives shows in Los Angeles (10/11), San Francisco (10/12), Montreal (10/13) and New York (10/16).
For Citizens! aesthetics in music is all-important; ‘pop is not a dirty word’ they proclaim. So, after signing to French label Kitsuné, the UK band set about following their ‘manifesto’ and began recording their debut album in the wilds of Scotland, a process that proved to be a little unorthodox.
“We had a strict set of rules that we forced ourselves to abide by. One was we weren’t allowed to do any studio trickery, so there’s no autotune or correcting mistakes or anything on the record. And then there was the idea that no element of any given song was allowed to sound as if it came from the same place. So the main idea behind “True Romance” was, ‘Kanye West producing an Arcade Fire song’. Or maybe it’s the other way round… But it’s the thing of doing what people least expect, but making it sound addictive and exciting.”
Citizens! are:
Tom Burke (vocals)
Thom Rhoades (guitar)
Martyn Richmond (bass)
Lawrence Diamond (keyboards / guitar)
Mike Evans (drums)
Citizens! Live Dates:
10/11 – Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey (Kitsuné Maison Night /OOHLALA!) tix
10/12 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop (OOHLALA!) tix
10/16 – Montreal, CAN @ Evenko (OOHLALA!) tix
10/17 – New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom (OOHLALA!) tix
10/18 – New York, NY @ CMJ (details tbd)
10/19 – New York, NY @ CMJ (details tbd)
10/20 – New York, NY @ CMJ (details tbd)
Citizens! – Here We Are tracklist:
01. True Romance
02. Reptile
03. Caroline
04. Love You More
05. Let’s Go All The Way
06. (I’m In Love With Your) Girlfriend
07. Nobody’s Fool
08. Monster
09. She Said
10. I Wouldn’t Want To
11. Know Yourself