Autolux

I have been waiting years for Autolux to release the follow-up to their debut album, Future Perfect, and that follow-up is almost upon us. The new album is named Transit Transit and will be released in the US on August 3rd.

If you're not familiar with Autolux, they're a three-piece from California that makes music which could be categorized as shoegazer, krautrock or simply experimental, though I hear shoegazer mentioned the most in regards to their style. There is definitely a bit of Kevin Shields in their sound, but there is a lot of Sonic Youth and Led Zeppelin too. Their drummer, Carla Azar, formerly of Ednaswap, is simply a monster behind the kit. Greg Edwards, their guitarist, formerly of Failure, is wonderfully noisy and chaotic. Eugene Goreshter is the bassist and lead vocalist, although all three members share vocals from time to time, but his breathy and haunting voice is impossible to forget once you've heard it.

A lot of people saw Autolux on tour with Nine Inch Nails a few years ago, and it's become a running joke that Transit Transit was a contender for the title of the new Chinese Democracy as it had been in gestation for so long. In the band's defense, they were on a Sony subsidiary when they released Future Perfect, but due to poor sales they were dropped and spent their time since working on new music, looking for a label and touring. Much of Transit Transit had been written and performed live for several years, and the album has been completed for about a year and a half at the very least, but the band knew they needed some kind of support for sales and distribution, so they continued looking for that one elusive label they would sign with. That label ended up being TBD Records, a subsidiary of Dave Matthews' ATO Records that handled the US physical release of Radiohead's In Rainbows, and ATP Records for the album's European release.

With the new album's release being just over a month away, the band has made the first single from the album available for free download via their official site. It's called Supertoys and it's great! They also released the song Audience No. 2 for free download with the option to make a donation via their site, and it will be on the album as well.

If you like these tracks, please support the band. Going to their shows or purchasing their merchandise is great if you're not going to buy the music, but that doesn't mean people should simply be downloading the album when it comes out. Despite being on a label with good distribution, these guys are truly indie, so if you like the songs please download the album when it's released on August 3rd. The band will really appreciate it. Until then, I'm providing links for their website, the front page of which has a link for the download of Supertoys, and a separate link for the Audience No. 2 page as I don't believe it's directly accessible via their site any longer. And if you like what you hear and don't want to wait till August 3rd, their first album, Future Perfect, is still available for purchase digitally via iTunes or Amazon, and it really is incredible. Hope you dig Autolux like I do!


Autolux's Official Website with link to download Supertoys

Autolux - Audience No. 2

Autolux's Wikipedia Reference