Kevin Bronson on April 27th, 2022

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If you were around for the waning days of the Aughts, you knew London-bred the Big Pink from their techno-gaze anthem “Dominos,” which aside from threatening hearing loss at concert halls and festivals alike, got some interesting reactions from the cognoscenti.

Anyway, after a Mercury Prize-nominated album in 2009 and another in 2012, co-founder Robbie Furze — without partner-in-noise Milo Cordell, who departed to mind his record label, Merok — found himself relocated to Los Angeles. And until today’s release of the new single “No Angels,” not much was heard from the Big Pink. There was a single in 2015, along with some new songs played live in a residency at the Echo. There was another in 2017, along with talk of a third Big Pink album. Beyond that, there was only Furze’s regular DJ gig for those who dared to brave the Silver Lake bar Tenants of the Trees.

“No Angels” was made with heavy-hitting producer Tony Hoffer, and in the press release for the song, Furze, now joined in the band by longtime drummer Akiko Matsuura and bassist Charlie Barker, picks up the story:

“It’s a track reflecting that moment when you understand that all you’ve set your sights on has led to a place far away from where you should be and everything you truly love,” he says. “It took sacrificing everything I’d built in London and moving to Los Angeles, a place I thought I needed to be in order to achieve my dreams, for me to realize that it was about much more than just myself. I had a moment of clarity when I understood what’s truly important and what I needed to do to get back to everything and everyone that I loved. That’s what this song is about.”

The song’s grandiosity recalls much of the band’s 2009 debut, “A Brief History of Love,” but with the bombast dialed back and with a treacly synth (think MGMT) joining in as Furze pleads, “Give me something I don’t miss.”

“The first album was that classic thing: Is this actually happening?” Furze says. “There were no expectations, just two best friends working on music together, and to us it felt like an explosion. Then came the second record, which we thought we could bash out because we were now so busy on tour, but we soon realized that it didn’t have the same romance or importance of the first record and that affected Milo deeply. I remember doing the first gigs after ‘Future This’ and thinking: Something doesn’t feel right here. We were trying to get the songs written as quickly as possible and we neglected the essence of the Big Pink in the process.”

Furze then started over in L.A. “I fell into DJing in Los Angeles. London was on a bit of a downer at the time, especially if you were in a rock band, and there seemed to be a lot of English musicians moving to L.A. – it was the place to be,” he says. “A friend of mine was opening a bar in Silver Lake called Tenants of the Trees and it felt like the beginning of a movement. It had the beautiful models, the token celebs, the bands I love … There I was with Black Motorcycle Club and Queens of the Stone Age, and I was Robbie from the Big Pink, DJing on Tuesday nights. It was fun.

“And that’s when things started happening again because there are a lot of lost artists in L.A., people who have gone out there with their talent and lost their way. L.A.’s great when you’re on the up but if you find yourself having fallen out of favor, it can be hard to get back on the proverbial treadmill. But if you can get those people in the room for a moment, lovely things can emerge from the chaos.”

Simon Milner and Ashley Rommelrath directed the video of stylized tour footage.

||| Watch: The video for “No Angels”

||| Previously: “How Far We’ve Come,” “Hightimes” “Stay Gold”