Sylvan Esso released their new album No Rules Sandy via Loma Vista to critical acclaim earlier in the year, and after five long years, the duo will return to the UK/EU in 2023 for limited live dates.
Created primarily over the course of three weeks that Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn spent in a small Los Angeles rental home at the beginning of 2022, the album is both the fastest the band has ever made a record, and the most uninhibited. “Even if we weren’t feeling good, we would just sit down and try to make something,” Meath says. “Pretty much every day that we did that, we got a song that we liked.”
The tour will take place in July 2023 and will see headline dates in Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, and London.
Sylvan Esso continue to leap from the frameworks of pop and electronic music into a wilder unknown. Between the band’s most frenetic production, cathartic hooks and strangest sounds to date, Sanborn says, “I want everything to feel like something you’ve heard before, but presented in a way you’ve never heard.”
Produced and written by Sylvan Esso, with additional recording taking place at their own Betty’s studio in Chapel Hill, NC, No Rules Sandy also features contributions from drummer TJ Maiani, string arrangements by Gabriel Kahane, and saxophone from Sam Gendel, plus an acoustic closing track unlike anything the band has done before, and a collection of six, intimate sonic diary entries tying everything together.
The music of No Rules Sandy has earned praise from The New York Times, NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, NME, Consequence and beyond, in addition to appearances on NPR’s All Things Considered and more.
“No Rules Sandy” – Tracklist
1.Moving
2.Look at Me
3.(Bad Fills)
4.Echo Party
5.How Did You Know
6.(Betty’s, May 4, 2022)
7.Didn’t Care
8.(Vegas // Dad)
9.Your Reality
10.(#1vm)
11.Cloud Walker
12.Sunburn
13.(?)
14.Alarm
15.(No Rules Sandy)
16.Coming Back to You
Reviews
“this is Sylvan Esso’s best album yet” – CLASH 8/10
“an immersive, imaginative sound” – NME ★★★★
“they ended up with certainly one of the best things they’ve ever done, if not their best record” – NPR
“a collection of danceable pop songs that feel as mesmerizing as confetti falling to the floor” – NYLON
“From the Broadcast-infused Moving, to the light RnB of Look at Me, and Echo Party’s soft, glitchy beauty and lovely piano that breaks down into a tinny ‘90′s dance party, it is full of playful creativity.” – The Irish Times ★★★★
“Challenges all expectations…an album that celebrates renewed, unconstrained motion: lighthearted on the surface, purposeful at its core.” – The New York Times
“On The North Carolinians’ fourth album, Nick Sanborn’s endlessly inventive, LCD Soundystem-like electronica forms the backdrop for Amelia Meath’s chopped and sliced vocals and lyrics that are like snippets from her private musings.” – The Sunday Times