Following their sold-out Australian tour dates, Vallis Alps share the latest prismatic preview from their anticipated debut album Cleave (out August 24), with new single ‘You & I’. With the release, Vallis Alps are elated to share the details of their USA tour across September-October, with tickets on sale now. LISTEN HERE + BUY TICKETS HERE + PRE-ORDER CLEAVE LP HERE.

Co-written with Eric Cannata of Young The Giant, ‘You & I’ is as retrospective of Parissa Tosif and David Ansari’s relationship as it harks back to the early sound that gave them virality as Vallis Alps. Crossing Arlo Parks’ gentle pace with the catharsis of Charlotte Day Wilson, ‘You & I’ treads with reflection. Amongst verses backed by a rubber-bridged guitar, remarks not quite fully realised as hindsight (“we used to talk until it hurt”), shift through its conversational tone to paint the picture of a severed relationship. “We’re hardwired to be better but we’re worse… look how our violence cracks the Earth,” paint just how close the two came to leaving it all behind, before making the conscious decision to change.

Contextually Parissa shares, “This is a song that started when we were struggling to function as friends and as a band and wanted to quit working together. It went through over 20 versions and couldn’t find its place until our friendship was repaired. Our hope is that people in all kinds of relationships – romantic, work partnerships, creative collaborations, and the like can relate to this journey we’ve been on and the tools we learned.” David continues, “After a tumultuous 18 months of album writing, Parissa and I did mediation in early 2020 to salvage the album, the band, and our friendship. Our mediator helped us accept that we are opposites and that the “messy middle” between our respective tastes and outlooks is where great work is made.”

Cleave, meaning to cling to and to sever from, is an album between opposites, in its most distilled form previewed through ‘You & I’. Since first meeting at age 18 and learning to write music together, demos flung online between Eora / Sydney and Si’ahl / Seattle respectively, Parissa and David could never have anticipated the explosion of their debut EP and the journey of rigorous touring that would follow. Across that time, as Vallis Alps the two have experienced the peaks and pitfalls of life alongside each other, processing their dizzying ascent into sudden success with a close-knit friendship that provided a source of stability and certainty amongst all their disbelief.

Lyrically, what began as an attempted conversation between two different people, struggling to arrive at a point of unity in writing ‘You & I’, soon dawned on Vallis Alps as a relay of their own friendship and the challenges they have faced. From their breakout, as they matured and defined their identities – often on tour, isolated from everyone except each other – the pair saw opposing personalities begin to emerge, causing tension that would be left unresolved as they navigated what would have been their most victorious moments as a band, from international festivals to sold-out headline shows most significantly in writing their debut album.

“You & I is a story about that messy middle,” David elaborates. “where two people can be close, but still separated by irreconcilable differences in how they view and move through the world. Parissa and I were ultimately able to recognise our differences as strengths, but the song is about the feeling of pain we experienced in our disagreements.” Thematically, Parissa explains “It speaks to where we were at the worst part of our struggles – the realisations we had about our process and our continual desire to make things work – which we eventually did, through mediation and hard work. It lives on the album as a reminder of what was, so that we can celebrate how much changed after, and hopefully share with our audience how grateful we are that we stuck it out to enter this new chapter.”

Fast forward and Vallis Alps’ forthcoming debut Cleave is a defining statement of evolution, reflecting on the acts of cleaving in Parissa and David’s individual lives in all their distinct and deeply emotional forms. Making sense of the desperation of life, where severance gives way to strength; family, vocation, migration, and just plain living. These acts form their inner truths and values dissected across the record, weaving together contrasting forces, the two halves of Vallis Alps, who work through the Cleave’s twelve tracks to shift from states of turbulence and friction to a partnership capable of flourishing alongside one another no matter how different they may be. Of the tribulations of the past that must be cleaved to progress towards a mutual future. Of Parissa and David’s friendship and siblinghood as a whole – today, closer than ever before.