Video: La Luz, ‘The Pines’

Kevin Bronson on August 25th, 2021

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“As the days fly by / Just remember I / am here on earth to love you,” Shana Cleveland coos on “Here on Earth,” one of the singles from La Luz’s new album, a self-titled affair arriving Oct. 2 via Hardly Art.

She’s singing about being of this earth but sounding as if she’s delivering the message from some astral plane. Spare, plaintive and intimate like big hug, it’s exemplary of where the L.A.-via-Seattle trio — guitarist Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandal — has taken their surf-inspired psych-folk music for their fourth full-length.

La Luz recorded the album at Linear Labs Studio with producer Adrian Younge, who besides his own notable work has worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Bilal Ghostface Killah, Jhené Aiko and the Delfonics, as well as newcomers such as Angela Muñoz. He’s known for his vintage soul and jazz aesthetic. So La Luz’s new singles sound not just from another place but another time.

Not all serious and ghostly, the album’s new single is “The Pines,” a spry ditty that comes with a Hamilton Boyce-directed video set at the titular neighborhood dive bar. Karaoke on.

||| Watch: The video for “The Pines”