BEEN STELLAR ANNOUNCE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR WITH FONTAINES D.C.
DEBUT ALBUM SCREAM FROM NEW YORK, NY OUT JUNE 21 VIA DIRTY HIT
Been Stellar have just announced they will be joining Fontaines D.C. on their North American tour this Fall. The news comes ahead of the band’s debut album Scream from New York, NY, out June 21st (new release date) via their new label home Dirty Hit.
The band have shared several singles so far, including the white-knuckled and cutting “Sweet,” the ferocious late-album highlight “All In One,” and lead single “Passing Judgment,” a masterful deployment of unbearable pressure and violent relief. Been Stellar have spent the past month on a major European tour supporting The 1975 and will resume touring in the UK next week, returning to the states for their Lollapalooza debut, ahead of their North American tour supporting Fontaines D.C.
Scream from New York, NY is a remarkably brutal debut – bruised and volatile, it captures an image of ‘20s New York that’s unrelenting and harsh, where tenderness is a finite resource burned up by the machinery of the city and human connection is a luxury product. Leaving behind the driving shoegaze of their early recordings, the NYC-based five-piece tap into the disaffected sound and spirit of New York luminaries like Sonic Youth and Interpol, as well as the nihilistic, yearning cool of Iceage and Bends-era Radiohead, striking upon a sound that’s fearsome, buffeting and beautiful at the same time – a tidal wave as viewed from underneath.
PRE-ORDER SCREAM FROM NEW YORK, NY ON VINYL, CD AND CASSETTE FROM DIRTY HIT
As its wry title implies, Scream from New York, NY, is a record about what happens when language fails – between friends, partners, a city and its citizens – and the primal scream you might let out when words just don’t work anymore.
Like so many other dyed-in-the-wool New York bands, Been Stellar are transplants. Guitarist Skyler Knapp and vocalist Sam Slocum first met in their freshman year of high school a decade ago; members of the cross country team, they bonded over the band t-shirt Skyler was wearing and decided to start jamming together. In Michigan, they started performing under the Been Stellar name, but it wasn’t until the pair began studying at NYU, and met Brazilian-born guitarist Nando Dale, bass player Nico Brunstein and drummer Laila Wayans, that a sound started to coalesce. Despite working in wildly disparate styles – Nando and Skyler bonded over British bands like The Cribs; Nico was making electronic music, and Laila rave – the group bonded over a shared sense of humor, forming a motley crew based more on emotional compatibility than any rigid ideas of shared artistic sensibility.
Determined to break new sonic ground, the band embarked on a relentless practice schedule, even renting scrappy studios on days off during tours with Fontaines DC and Shame. After befriending him at SXSW, the band tapped producer Dan Carey (black midi, Wet Leg) to help coalesce the disparate elements of their sound that had been percolating: forceful, driving physicality; pop classicism; gnarled beauty; and a rich emotional core. The resulting 10-song album announces Been Stellar as gimlet-eyed chroniclers of contemporary youth, staring through noise and confusion into the dark heart of modern life. These songs embody the spirit of a city that makes and breaks its inhabitants on a daily basis – an irony befitting the album’s tone: Been Stellar’s preternatural ability to capture the disconnection that haunts New York with photorealist detail might just be the thing that vaults them into its pantheon.
Tour Dates
May 15 – Southampton, UK @ Joiners
May 16 – Brighton, UK @ The Great Escape
May 18 – Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling
May 20 – Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
May 22 – Manchester, UK @ YES (basement)
May 23 – London, UK @ The Lexington
July 26 – Sheffield, UK @ Tramlines Fest
July 27 – Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Fest
July 28 – Suffolk, UK @ Latitude Festival
August 1-4 – Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
Sep 20 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo *
Sep 21 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater *
Sep 22 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom *
Sep 24 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield *
Sep 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium *
Sep 27 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA *
Sep 28 – Pomona, CA @ The Fox Theater *
Sep 30 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren *
Oct 2 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre *
Oct 4 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada Theater *
Oct 5 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown *
Oct 6 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee *
Oct 8 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Fillmore Minneapolis *
Oct 9 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed *
Oct 11 – Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre *
Oct 12 – Montreal, QC @ MTELUS *
Oct 13 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner *
Oct 15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount *
Oct 18 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club *
Oct 20 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia *
* supporting Fontaines D.C.
Been Stellar Links
Fontaines D.C. Links
Background Photo Credit: Gabe Long
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE 1975 – NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM
