With just over a month until the release of new album GENE, Sam Eastgate AKA LA Priest has shared new single, “Beginning”. Marking a dazzling opening to GENE, “Beginning” hits with an inescapable melody and the first introduction to GENE, the custom built drum machine on which the album was made. As LA Priest says: “…and in the beginning there were drums and LA Priest said, ‘Let there be fire.’”
“Beginning” is accompanied by a video directed by Joseph Bird, in which we see LA Priest in a total nomadic and exploratory state - almost shamanic - rambling across the vast expanses of his home of North Wales with a 7ft Flying-V guitar. “Beginning” is the second track taken from GENE, it follows the hugely successful “What Moves?” which has racked up over 1 million streams globally and was featured on the playlist at both BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6Music.
GENE arrives four years after the iconoclast variously known as Sam Eastgate, Sam Dust and LA Priest thrilled the world with the cosmic pop of his debut album Inji, his first LP for Domino and his first solo output following the disbanding of former outfit, Late Of The Pier. GENE also follows the 2016 project Soft Hair in which Sam teamed up with Connan Mockasin for an instant cult-classic album.
GENE, the album, is named after a brand-new analogue drum machine Sam dreamt up and built alone. Working in isolation for more than two years in California, Wales and England’s south coast, soldering iron in hand, Sam developed the inners of GENE using dozens of electrical circuits he made up himself. The creation came after a search for an alternative to the structure and rigor of standard drum machines. Its unique rhythmic patterns are the focal point for the album, which is coloured by lush, pastoral tones, paired with the influence of his environmental changes.
GENE was produced alongside London based artist, producer, DJ and founder of Phantasy Sounds records, Erol Alkan.
GENE track list:
Beginning
Rubber Sky
What Moves
Peace Lily
Open My Eyes
Sudden Thing
Monochrome
What Do You See
Kissing of the Weeds
Black Smoke
Ain’t No Love Affair
