Toronto duo cleopatrick today announce their sophomore album FAKE MOON – pre-save here. The announcement also comes alongside brand new single and music video ‘PLEASE’ – listen here.
Like gravity pulling them towards their most experiential phase yet, cleopatrick’s sophomore album FAKE MOON is a record spanning time, influence, and sound. Transporting the listener to the outer limits of an unexpected place, it is the moment Luke Gruntz (vocals, guitar, production) and Ian Fraser (drums, production) boldly shake off the abrasive hooks of their journey so far, for a contemplative collage of sound which reflects, resets, and rebalances in one small step for post-rock and one giant leap for humankind. “It’s more than just a change sonically,” Luke reveals. “The album instinctively paints a picture of something meaningful; all the songs ask questions or surrender to uncertainty.”
Working with producer Philip Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker/Hand Habits/Tomberlin) and respected guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Haldeman at Weinrobe’s Brooklyn studio, the sessions for FAKE MOON mark the first time the band expanded their existing creative bubble, helping to drive the growth in their sonic palette and songwriting.
New track ‘PLEASE’ is a love song about the implicit magnetic pull of groupthink and the immense comfort that comes with forfeiting one’s individuality to belong to a team.
cleopatrick are refreshed from a creative breather, after the rigorous post-pandemic tour of debut LP BUMMER more than made up for missed out living, the newest record on their own Nowhere Special Recordings may be packaged differently but within their distinctive fuzz, its DNA is still the same. “We’re just being honest, and trusting our creative compass,” the band says. “The format we’d gotten used to started to feel like wearing a costume, this muscle memory of rinse and repeat. When it came to making another record, everything felt distant; we’d grown up and moved on but Covid had held us in that place of being kids who’d started a band, for longer… we can’t do the Peter Pan album release cycle, that’s a recipe to feel like a total phony.”
Embarking upon a post-rock voyage with hip-hop and lo-fi folk baked in, FAKE MOON takes cleopatrick closer to their influences than ever before; perhaps you’ll hear magical songwriting and production akin to their playlist staples Radiohead, glints of Dijon’s surreal but grounded Absolutely, the sonic confidence of Mk.gee shimmering through, or the fret squeaks of favorites since high school, Califone.
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