In The Very Good News We All Need, Gang Of Youths Have Just Dropped A Surprise EP

Gang Of Youths have surprised fans today and released a brand new EP!

The much-loved group today share their EP total serene, their first collection of work since 2017's multi-ARIA Award winning album Go Farther In Lightness. 

The three-track EP features the angel of 8th ave, which was released last month, as well as brand new track unison and a cover of Elbow's 2002 track asleep in the back. '

"Unison is a deeply important track for us that really signals where the music is headed on the new record," said frontman David Le'aupepe. 

"I conceived the song in Samoa, my ancestral homeland. Here we sample and introduce the work of David Fanshawe, who travelled to the Pacific Islands in the 1980s and recorded the most extensive library of indigenous Pacific music anywhere in the world."

Of the Elbow cover, Le'aupepe said "We love Elbow and we thought it was thematically relevant. It couldn’t have been anything other than asleep in the back."

This is the first body of work from the band since Go Farther In Lightness and the departure founding member Joji Malani, who left the group in October 2019 to launch his own label. 

Late last year, Australian Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo shared a video of Gang Of Youths in the studio just weeks after bass player Max Dunn confirmed that the group "are working hard" on a new record.

The group have now revealed that they had planned to "have a creative reset" with the COVID-19 pandemic giving them a "sign for complete artistic overhaul". 

“I think it’s been challenging for us, this whole process, but it’s probably going to be good for our music," shared Dunn last month. "We’ve gone in a less safe direction and it’s going to be more in line with Dave’s actual vision, rather than Dave pumping something out to get a deadline met." 

"We’re exploring so many different territories and sides of ourselves and that’s manifesting in the music,” added Jung Kim (guitar, keyboards). "We’re doing things that have never really made an appearance in Gang Of Youths."

In addition to the release of total serene, Gang Of Youths have also announced a special limited edition vinyl reissue of their 2016 EP, Let Me Be Clear, in celebration of its fifth anniversary. Pre-order it here.

Check out total serene here.