Stream: MUNA, ‘I Know a Place’

on
2
MUNA

Since its infancy in New York clubs, disco music has long connected with members of the LGBTQ community. But rarely has it spoken to that constituency so directly as in “I Know a Place,” the new single from L.A. dance-pop trio MUNA. None other than TIME magazine held forth on the new single, which singer Katie Gavin said was written last year in the conflicting storms of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding same-sex marriages and yet lingering, palpable antipathy toward the LGBTQ community. In part, the song goes: “If you want to go out dancing / I know a place / I know a place we can go / Where everyone’s gonna lay down their weapons.”

Then, last June, the Orlando nightclub massacre happened. “‘I Know A Place’ was never supposed to be a funeral hymn,” Gavin told TIME. “It was meant to be a work song, like Yoko Ono’s full-page ad in the New York Times that proclaimed, ‘War Is Over!’ in December of 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War. We wrote our song to be the voice in your head that tells you to celebrate peace during wartime, because our battle is only just beginning, and one day our war really will be over. … It was also meant to serve as encouragement for our community to remain vulnerable and kind and hopeful in the face of violence.”

The song is the first new tune from MUNA since the trio — Gavin, Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin — released their “Loudspeaker” EP in May. The new song arrived with the news that MUNA’s debut full-length, “About U,” will be out Feb. 3. It includes all four songs on the “Loudspeaker” EP (instant-gratification downloads with an album pre-order). A North American tour kicks off in L.A. on Feb. 1.

||| Stream: “I Know a Place”

||| Live: MUNA plays Feb. 1 at the Teragram Ballroom. Tickets.

||| Previously: “Loudspeaker”