Premiere: The Living Strange Hones In On An Amalgamation of Inspirations with "CLOSE"

 

☆ BY ALEAH ANTONIO ☆

 
 

ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS ABOUT BEING IN A BAND is how the influences from each member come together to form their sound. If you were to translate your love for Smashing Pumpkins, Skrillex, Nine Inch Nails, and George Clanton together, what would that sound like? Well, it’d probably sound like The Living Strange.

The Brooklyn-based band, consisting of Elijah Sokolow, Benya Shafrir, and Nico Sleator, currently has over a dozen singles out in the world. Each new release sounds different than the last. Past single “2020” gives off the electricity of a Queens of the Stone Age song, while 2021 single “High” is adjacent to TV on the Radio. Their newest release “CLOSE” is an electric and yearning track after being with someone after so much time apart. 

"CLOSE" is a bright concoction of tinkering riffs held together with a gritty lead guitar and simple yet emotional drumming. The leading chorus line, "I just wanna be close to you, yeah" was an accidental earworm conceived from Sokolow, making it the driving force of the single. The sound is reminiscent of early 2010s indie rockers Local Natives, bringing the self described "festival music" to the forefront of this single's sound. The band does an incredible job at making the listener feel every beat, but hearing this song live is a necessity.

“CLOSE” is the lead single off The Living Strange’s upcoming debut album, TELL ME WHO YOU ARE, due later this year. Usually singles are a taste of what’s to come from an album, but knowing this band, their album might as well be full of wildcards. Nonetheless, we anticipate nothing but good things in their future releases. 

Read Luna’s conversation with frontman Elijah Sokolow on his influences, new projects, and “CLOSE” below.

LUNA: Where is everyone from, and how did you guys find yourself as a band in New York?

ELI: Making music in New York is one of the coolest things to be doing. Benya and I are both from LA. We both moved to NYC around the same time and found Nico, who is from Pittsburgh, but came to NYC for college. We’re super thankful for the community here.

LUNA: What inspires your general sound? Did anything different inspire "CLOSE" in particular?

ELI: My main principle when we’re making music is to make things that only we can make. It’s all an amalgamation of the things we love. Our general style is usually inspired by blending rock influences like Nine Inch Nails and Arctic Monkeys with electronic influences like Jamie XX and the Prodigy but then organizing everything to feel cohesive. "Close" was inspired by everyone I have ever been in love with, Smashing Pumpkins, The 1975, Porter Robinson, and the concept of Festival music.

LUNA: If you were to create a name for your genre of music, what would you say?

ELI: I believe in the genre-less attitude of new music but if I was going to name our style - I’d call it "Alt Alt” or “Music for the spaces in between.” "Close" is a driving song, though.

LUNA: How was the process of writing and recording "CLOSE"?

ELI: We live in a world in which the pendulum of “alternative” constantly swings back and forth between palatable music and really far out stuff. I had reached a place after a year and a half of our shows being totally improvised - I realized the most uncomfortable thing for me to do would be to try and write a pop banger! Everyone says “oh I could do that” but in my opinion it is more difficult to do well than to make something very cryptic. I came up with the initial guitar phrase and we put together an ASMR type beat around it and went off to the races. When I sang the take of “I Just Wanna Be Close To You, Yeah!” in the recording, it was actually a freestyle and the first and only time that I recorded myself saying the phrase. We then treated that like a sample and made a tune built for playing live, dancing with everyone, and probably a coming-of-age movie as well.

LUNA: Can you guys tell me anything about your upcoming album, TELL ME WHO YOU ARE?

Tell Me Who You Are is our best work in my opinion. We went all in on an album that deals with themes of identity, love of each other and of music, and ultimately of connection. The rhythms are puzzle pieces that fit together and the music told us what to do. The pandemic had me dealing with these themes - Who am I outside of music? Who am I outside of my relationships and desires? Outside of my beliefs or even my physical being? The answer is evolving daily but this album was a way of inviting people to engage with their own feelings of that nature and have a good time with it.

LUNA: Lastly, "tell me who you are" individually in five words or less!

ELI: We Are The Living Strange! 

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