We’re pleased to bring you the premiere of Luggage’s new music video for their song “Ditch” (watch it below). The track is taken from the band’s latest album Three, which was released through Don Giovanni Records. You can purchase the album here: Bandcamp | Don Giovanni Records
Luggage drummer Luca Cimarusti commented on the video:
We filmed and edited this clip ourselves in one afternoon, filming all along Lake Street in Chicago, from the center of the city all the way the far west end. Lake’s elevated train tracks cut through the heart of the city, and we’ve all driven under them hundreds of times. Recently on a trip down Lake we felt a connection between the massive rusty structures and the pulse and energy of the music we create in a building a few blocks away, so we tried to capture that in this clip.
About the band:
Formed in 2015 by Luca Cimarusti (drums), Michael John Grant (bass), and Michael Vallera (guitar, voice), the band’s music is a fusion of minimalism, drone, and punk. At once meditative and aggressive, it both embodies and expands on their hometown’s predilection for elemental repetition and punishing volume.
In addition to Luggage, Vallera performs with percussionist Steven Hess in the duo Cleared and also releases atmospheric solo recordings through Denovali Records and Opal Tapes under his own name. Cimarusti was a member of Heavy Times and played with Grant in the band Basic Cable.
Three was recorded in March of 2017 at Electrical Audio with engineer Matthew Barnhart, who also mixed and mastered the material. The songs were performed live in the studio, with only vocals and a handful of guitars applied as overdubs. The presentation is natural and straightforward – the naked sound of a band in a room.
“We’ve always been interested in a path of reduction and this is even further down that path. We were feeling inspired by bands like Unwound, Tar, or the early Low records – I guess what you’d call slowcore – where the music actively exposes what everybody is doing.” As a result, the recordings are more nuanced, but also more severe and physical. Sparse, but ultimately greater than the sum of their parts.
Top photo by Stephen Vallera
