RÜFÜS DU SOL

Few bands have had a bigger decade than RÜFÜS DU SOL, the game-changing electronic outfit that has steadily risen to become the biggest live dance act in the world. Now, after earning a Grammy Award, launching their own festival, and starting a record label, Rose Ave., the visionary trio returns with their fifth studio album “INHALE/EXHALE”, a transformative project that signifies a new era. Written in the throes of big personal changes and an overhauled creative process, the record sees the band confidently crossing into their next phase integrating the mesmerizing techniques and artful concepts of their early records with unexpected references and new-found maturity. The result: A gorgeous, sprawling, heart-on-sleeve project marked by vintage soul samples, spacious instrumentals and nods to the carefree club tracks of their youth.

Since forming in Sydney’s experimental electronic scene in 2010, Jon George, James Hunt and Tyrone Lindqvist have stretched the boundaries of house, techno, indie, and psychedelic rock. Reimagining the possibilities of the live experience while simultaneously forging new pathways for dance music. On their debut, “Atlas” and its clubby follow up, “Bloom” they established themselves as underground innovators who were unafraid to pair bedroom melodies with rave muscle. Their sweeping third and fourth albums “Solace” and “Surrender” were cloudlike, artful, and massive euphoric soundscapes from a once-in-a-generation band who’d found themselves on top of the world.

For the trio, “INHALE/EXHALE” sparked a whole new way of working. For the first time ever, the band lives apart (Linqvist in San Diego, Hunt and George in Miami) and recorded the album in a series of creative spurts, convening in Austin, Los Angeles or Ibiza and jamming for two weeks at a time. The approach – paired with a fair amount of group therapy – opened up new spheres of inspiration. “We leaned into older-feeling stuff like soul songs, nineties house samples, older strings, etc., and softer sounds that felt more mature,” Lindqvist says. Adds Hunt: “We found new ways of relating to each other, both creatively and as friends. It felt like a re-blossoming.”

It’s fitting, then, that during this period the band found themselves drawn to flowers, which informed everything from song titles to visual cues. “Floral beauty was our creative springboard,” Lindqvist says, describing those botanical elements as inspiration for the record’s “sonic candy.” Given the band’s affinity for sentimentality and storytelling, flowers, as a theme, felt appropriate; they mark life’s major moments, from new babies to funerals, and this project signifies a new era. If the album has a centerpiece, it’s the closer, “Exhale,” recorded during a single afternoon in Austin, Texas. They’d set out to write the album’s finale and wanted something longer and more grandiose. “It kind of just showed itself to us without any forcing,” Lindqvist says. “Like a gift, you know? We were there for it, together, and down it came.”

When RÜFÜS DU SOL made their Bend debut in 2022 they taught us a thing or two about what electronic dance music can do, the production value, the creative ingenuity and careful intention behind each note. The result? A grand ole cathartic and oh-so-glittery dance party for the masses. Needless to say, we’re ecstatic for their return to town!

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