La Luz just revealed “Cicada,” the lead single from their upcoming album Floating Features coming out on May 11th. It’s the band’s first new release since the album Weirdo Shrine in 2015. The track begins with fuzzy guitar and keys, as Shana Cleveland’s honeyed voice chants “we heard it through the breeze/ metallic silvery,” describing the buzzing sounds of the cicada, it seems like an omen to members of La Luz.
The video starts off like a novella one would catch their abuelita watching in the living room, a classic tale of love; two women vying for the same mujeriego, womanizer. Just like the traditional tropes of any other novella— brujeria (black magic), brawls in bars and betrayal ensue.
Yet there is a spaghetti western flair to the video as we see the guitarist Shana Cleveland go on wild dune chases with her fellow bandmates, while Marian Li Pino, drummer of the band, gets into a brawl or two on a deserted highway rest stop. Alice Sandahl keyboardist for La Luz plays twin sisters, one a rebel another slightly prudish, as a way to show the duality of living life on the edge, they chant “will we ever be in one place long/ how could I go on forever/ living different everyday.”
In the end, women prevail against the two-faced lover “Valentin” and the other mysterious enemies, unlike an actual cicada, which hides from their prey, the women of this neo-novella western, aren’t afraid to fight back and to use their spiritual powers of deceit to get ahead.
Catch La Luz this weekend at Elsewhere on Saturday alongside The Mystery lights for Jonathan Toubin’s NY Night Train Soul Clap & Dance off, details and tickets here.
So dope! Can’t wait to see more from La Luz