New York trio Sunflower Bean—vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming, guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen, and drummer Olive Faber—are set to release their new EP, Shake, on September 27th via Lucky Number.
This marks the band’s first fully self-produced and recorded project, featuring some of their heaviest, most immediate, and loudest music to date. Drawing influence from the doom-laden, heavy metal sounds of bands like Black Sabbath, Shake embraces rock tropes and excess, harkening back to the sound of their earlier projects, Show Me Your Seven Secrets and Human Ceremony.
Shake represents Sunflower Bean in their rawest, most unfiltered form. To highlight this theme, the band will release a 14-minute performance-based video showcasing each track through interpretations of the natural elements: earth, wind, water, fire, and metal. For this ambitious project, they collaborated with Isaac Roberts, a rising director from Toronto. The band kicks off this series with the release of the first chapter, “earth,” alongside the video for the title track and lead single, “Shake.”
“SHAKE was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together. We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.”
Sunflower Bean have made a name for themselves as one of NYC’s quintessential indie rock bands over the past decade since forming in 2013. What started as a project of three high schoolers soon turned into a band with chart-topping releases, sold-out tour dates, international festival slots, wide-spread critical acclaim, and three remarkable full-length albums under their belt. Further, Cumming recently featured on Yves Tumor’s ‘album Heaven To A Tortured Mind, while Nick Kivlen and Olive Faber featured on and recorded Frost Children’s “Serpent” from their album Speed Run.
To celebrate the release of Shake, Sunflower Bean will perform four intimate US club shows in NYC, LA, Chicago, and Austin. These shows will feature the new EP as well as additional new music, giving fans an exclusive first look at the band’s latest evolution.
Sunflower Bean Tour Dates
October 2 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
October 9 – Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon
October 12 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
November 16 – Austin, TX – Empire Control Room
