Today, Zürich, Switzerland-based group District Five share “Place Your Bet,” a new single via Stone Pixel Records. KEXP has commended District Five’s “adventurous art-rock with psych and jazz undercurrents,” and “Place Your Bet” serves as a refinement of that ethos.

Building from a spacious Juno-106 synth figure and shuffling 7/4 rhythm, “Place Your Bet” suggests a void and a yearning to fill it. A space-rock dread and an almost Nick Drake-like vocal melody grasps at redemption through vice. As the band shares: “‘Place Your Bet’ is about the nature and allure of gambling and addictive behavior; desperate hopefulness, risk-taking. On the bright side, there’s a big coda at the end that feels like a chorus / resolution.” 

It’s a song made all the more powerful amid the modern deluge of gambling apps and financialized prediction markets. Listen to “Place Your Bet” here. 

Both aesthetically daring and politically astute, District Five’s music is wildly expansive and hard to pin down. The group veers from texturally modern experimental jazz (think Maruja or SML) to prickly but anthemic space-rock (somewhere between The Verve and Clinic) to scabrous but math-y post-punk noise (like black midi or Lightning Bolt), all while weaving in and out of haunting, often uncomplicated, melodic passages. 

District Five is Paul Amereller (drums, percussion), Tapiwa Svosve (vocals, synth, sax), Vojko Huter (vocals, guitar, synth), and Xaver Rüegg (bass). For ten years, the four friends have been experimenting with their sound language in practice rooms, finding ways to illuminate the minutia of their personal relationships, as well as the greater human experience. Much like their 2024 album, Come Closer, “Place Your Bet” and the music to come captures the immediacy of their live sound — with minimal cuts and overdubs. 

The band gives the friends a sense of agency that they’re using to reflect on and shape the trajectory of the lives and the lives of those they reach with their distinct sound. More to come from District Five soon.