Meet altopalo, the enigmatic NY four-piece who today announce their second album farawayfromeveryoneyouknow, to be released April 24, 2020 via Samedi Records. On their second offering, altopalo continue to traverse and disintegrate the boundaries between guitar music, electronica, and ambient. 

Listen to their first single of 2020, ‘honey’, what the band calls “a love song to Lexapro,” and a gracefully languid indie rock track, propelled by swelling synths and singer Rahm Silverglade harmonising with copies of himself. Stream ‘honey’ HERE.

Made up of veterans of the New York underground scene, the foursome comprises Rahm Silverglade, a solo artist in his own right releasing material through Terrible Records, guitarist Mike Haldeman who cut his teeth in Moses Sumney’s live band, Jesse Bielenberg and Dillon Treacy who have each played with Kevin Garrett and Amber Mark respectively.  Together, altopalo are opening up fresh new avenues for music through their dizzying experimentalism, both in their process and sound.

frozenthere, the band’s 2018 debut album, saw them decontextualising their instruments into atmospherics and walls of arpeggio, garnering praise from Pitchfork, Fader, Billboard, Consequence, and more. On farawayfromeveryoneyouknow, they hone and expand that sound, grounded in their experience as session players and inspired by time spent on tour in 2019, developing the songs live while supporting artists such as Metronomy and Com Truise. 

At times, the record feels like you’re tuning into an alien transmission. Lead singer Rahm Silverglade’s syllables twist around beautifully mangled textures of guitar and synthesiser courtesy of guitarist Mike Haldeman and bassist Jesse Bielenberg, all undergirded by drummer Dillon Treacy. But a closer listen to the lyrics reveals a distinct humanist message: the acceptance of anxiety and the rejection of self-care as crude product or lifestyle brand. Silverglade croons on “Mud:” “You’re stuck in the mud, don’t fight, what’s the effort for? Take all the time you’d like, close your eyes until it does.”

If frozenthere was a record that induced introspection, farawayfromeveryoneyouknow is about embracing your fears and facing them head-on. Treacy equates their recording process—long improvisations, recorded in full before they’re whittled into different loops, progressions, and fragments—to creating a jigsaw puzzle. And in order to put it all together, altopalo had to shed the preexisting relationships they held with their instruments. Bielenberg describes the new album as “ruminations on a transitional period,” something of a rebirth for the band and its individual members, which is reflected throughout its 14 tracks.

Honey‘ by altopalo is out now, buy/stream it here.
farawayfromeveryoneyouknow is out April 24.

FARAWAYFROMEVERYONEYOUKNOW TRACK LIST
1. am i am
2. longlife
3. mud
4. lub
5. honey
6. lub ii
7. letdown 
8. party song
9. hail (lub iii)
10. powerlines
11. funny thoughts, somewhere between the beginning and the end, eat your heart out mh, prelude of light (lub iiii)
12. nocturne
13. headlock
14. now that you’re here, in case you want to stay a while, a warm thing, exit music (kind of)

PRAISE FOR ALTOPALO

“It’s a masterclass in atmospheric release, evolving with eerie synths, flourishing guitar, and commanding beats.”
Pitchfork

“A group blazing their own trail… mixing tropical-pop influences with harsh and crushing noise elements.”
The FADER

“Tinges of R&B, soul, and pop filling out the meticulously constructed, cavernous rock soundscapes.”
Billboard

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